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ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

A CONTRAST 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 

THE MILITARY VIOLENCE OF AUSTRIA 

AGAINST ITALY 



By 
ADELAIDE MATHEWS HARDING 

(Mrs. George F. Harding) 




RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR 

PUBLISHER 
FINE ARTS BUILDING, CHICAGO 



Copyright, 1919, 

BY 

Mrs. George F. Harding 



©Ci.A56 1991 



tp 






DEDICATED 

TO 

The memory of those Italian soldiers and 
sailors who went forth to fight the en- 
emies of their country but who did not 
return. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 




page 




Preface 


7 




Prologue 


13 


I. 


The Unification of Italy 


21 


II. 


The Unification of Italy 


34 


III. 


The Unification of Italy 


42 


IV. 


The Unification of Italy 


50 


V. 


The Unification of Italy 


58 


VI. 


The Unification of Italy 


74 


VII. 


1CliJ^■■i[^J J< igiLi^Kafej^g Italy 


86 


VIII. 


The Renaissance 


99 


IX. 


Italy and Austria 


113 


X. 


Austria-Hungary 


117 


XI. 


Austria-Hungary 


128 


XII. 


Austria-Hungary 


138 


XIII. 


The Government of Italy 


153 


XIV. 


Church and State in France 


161 


XV. 


Italy and Austria 


174 


XVI. 


Italy and Austria 


184 


XVII. 


Italy and Austria 


188 


XVIII. 


General Comments 


197 


XIX. 


The Winning of the War 


202 


XX. 


The Monroe Doctrine 


216 


XXL 


General Comments 


219 


XXII. 


Conclusion 


233 




Appendix 


237 



PREFACE 



T 



HE writer makes no claim to origi- 
nality in this booklet, wherever she has 
found facts suited to her purpose she has 
used them; she has, however, sought to 
avoid illustrating Sheridan's famous wit- 
ticism in reply to a political opponent, 
when he said, "The honorable gentleman 
is indebted to his memory for his jests 
and his imagination for his facts." The 
account of the death of Anita Garibaldi, 
and the escape of "The hero of two 
worlds" to New York, is taken from the 
story as told by Luigi Carnovale in "Why 
Italy entered into the Great War." 

The writer is well aware she has vio- 
lated the canons of good taste in several 
instances, but we are living in an age 
when the barriers of convention are 



8 PREFACE 

swept away ; that which a few years ago 
would have daunted us effectively, we 
now do without flinching. In publish- 
ing the paper on the unification of Italy 
written so long ago, but followed by his- 
torical facts of a later period, the writer 
has sought to avoid repetition, and that 
which still exists is more an amplification 
of the same subject than anything else. 
Should the reader, however, complain in 
spite of this explanation, the writer will 
fall back on Touchstone's excuse for and 
comment on the country wench Audrey 
in '^As you Like It" : '' T's an ill favored 
thing but mine own." When the essay 
on the "Unification of Italy" was written 
for The Fortnightly of Chicago, there 
was not a copy of Mazzini's complete 
w^orks in any public library of this great 
city. The writer borrowed the volumes 
of Jane Addams and when she returned 
them, she invited Miss Addams to hear 
her paper, which she did. Of course, it 
was expected that she would have some- 



PREFACE 



thing to say on a subject so close to her 
life work — but the title of the essay as 
given by The Fortnightly to the essayist 
was ''Young Italy" — a veiled title — and 
not understood by many members of the 
Society. A member of the Club whose 
duty it was to look after the discussion 
following an essay, had invited Harriet 
Hosmer, the sculptress, an honorary 
member of "The Fortnightly," who had 
lived in the home of Mr. and Mrs. 
Browning in Italy, to read from her col- 
lection of Browning poetry. Miss Hos- 
mer read for half an hour the doggerel 
verse which these distinguished poets had 
amused themselves in writing to each 
other in the privacy of their home. 

The author could write a severe criti- 
cism on this work were it not for her vital 
interest not to do so. If anyone thinks 
it an easy task to write on such varied 
and divergent subjects in a time when 
fundamental changes in governments are 
the rule and not the exception and make 



lO PREFACE 



the results of his writing cohere, let him 
try it. Whilst writing that part of the 
work relating to Austria the government 
surrendered unconditionally, broke up 
and went to pieces. But, as the present 
chaotic state in no way changes its past 
history it has been deemed best to pub- 
lish it just as it was written. 

The explanatory foot-notes have been 
added in the hope that the book might be 
read by some who have no access to a 
reference library. 

The writer has no knowledge or expe- 
rience in book-making; she has been in- 
tensely interested in the conduct of the 
war, with nine relatives engaged with 
the Allies across the Atlantic. Whilst 
rejoicing at the sight of the flags^ of 
France, England and the United States 
together, she has grieved at the absence 
of that of Italy and she resolved to at- 
tempt to do something herself for Italy. 
Tho the result is unworthy of the cause, 
faulty and incomplete, she publishes the 



PREFACE II 

same at her own expense and gives the 
proceeds — should there be any — to the 
maimed or blinded soldiers and sailors 
of Italy. 

She feels that her compatriots have 
done much for France and Belgium, but 
so little for Italy, and in looking for the 
causes she cannot but conclude that it is 
mainly the result of the Roman Catholic 
churches' attitude toward Italy; that part 
of her book has cost her much pain : she 
craves the forbearance of a charitable 
and indulgent public. She cannot make 
the world her confessor but she feels that 
justice and duty to some of her dearest 
friends in the Catholic church oblige her 
to say — There was a time in her life 
when that which she held dearer than 
life itself trembled in the balance; the 
situation was changed and the day for her 
was won by the acts of four young women, 
all of whom were Roman Catholics. To 
the church she gives all the credit. 
Should this page ever meet their eyes, 



12 PREFACE 



they will understand! Meanwhile her 
silent gratitude to them and their church 
extends out to that eternity which has 
neither beginning nor end. 



PROLOGUE 

Blaise pascal, the French geom- 
etrician, wrote that the first thing to put 
into a book is the last thing the author 
learned from writing it; hence this pro- 
logue, to record facts new and old; new 
to some but old to others. It may serve 
as a clue to guide the reader in under- 
standing what the author has attempted 
to convey in her little book. She will 
begin by giving the statistical summary 
of our participation in the Great War. 

Total armed forces including Army, Navy, 

Marine Corps, etc 4,800,000 

Total men in the Army 4,000,000 

Men who went overseas 2,086,000 

Men who fought in France 1,390,000 

Greatest number sent in one month 306,000 

Greatest number returning in one month.. 333,000 
Tons of Supplies shipped from America to 

France 7,500,000 

Total registered in draft 24,234,021 

13 



14 PROLOGUE 

Total draft inductions 2,810,296 

Greatest number inducted in one month. . . 4xx),ooo 
Graduates of Line Officers' Training 

Schools 80,468 

Cost of war to April 30, 1919 $21,850,000,000 

Cost of Army to April 30, 1919 $13,930,000,000 

Battles fought by American troops 13 

Months of American participation in the 

war 19 

Days of Battle 200 

Days of duration of Meuse-Argonne battle 47 

Americans in Meuse-Argonne battle 1,200,000 

American casualties in Meuse-Argonne 

battle 120,000 

American battle deaths in war 50,000 

American wounded in war 236.000 

American deaths from disease 56,991 

Total deaths in the Army 112,422 

About 4,000,000 men served in the 
Army of the United States during the 
war from April 6, 19 17, to November 1 1, 
19 1 8. The total number of men serving 
in the armed forces of the country, in- 
cluding the Army, the Navy, the Marine 
Corps, and the other services, amounted 
to 4,800,000. It vs^as almost true that 
among each 100 American citizens 5 took 
up arms in defense of the country. 



PROLOGUE 15 

During the Civil War 2,400,000 men 
served in the northern armies or in the 
Navy. In that struggle 10 in each 100 
inhabitants of the Northern States served 
as soldiers or sailors. The American 
effort in the war v^ith Germany may be 
compared with that of the Northern 
States in the Civil War by noting that in 
the present war we raised twice as many 
men in actual numbers, but that in pro- 
portion to the population we raised only 
half as many. 

It would be interesting and instructive 
to make comparisons between the num- 
bers in the American armies during the 
recent war and those of France, Great 
Britain, Italy and Germany, but unfor- 
tunately this is most difficult to do fairly 
and truly. The reason for the difficulty 
lies in the diverse military policies of 
the nations, but, the discrimination 
against Italy in the treaty itself, and the 
acts of the reparation commission, de- 
mand notice. Italy, with one thirty-sec- 



1 6 PROLOGUE 

ond of the area of continental United 
States and one third of our population, 
sent 5,000,000 soldiers to bear arms under 
the Italian flag. The war has impover- 
ished Italy to a greater degree than the 
other allied countries, because she lacked 
most of the raw material necessary for 
carrying on the war: she has no coal, 
little petroleum or iron, besides she has 
no great sources of wealth such as are 
possessed by other lands. She is over 
populated, and, notwithstanding the fer- 
tility of her soil and the industry of her 
people, she cannot produce enough to 
feed the multitude. We have shown in 
that part of the book entitled "The Uni- 
fication of Italy," how, for a century 
Austria conscripted the Hungarians to 
hold the Italians in subjection making 
them the hereditary and implacable en- 
emies of the Italian people; yet the con- 
trolling powers now wish to give Fiume, 
an Italian city, to Jugo-Slavia. Why is 
England silent on this subject? And 



PROLOGUE 17 

what moves our President Wilson to take 
such a firm stand in the matter? For 
several years the great Cunard steamship 
line has been established in Fiume. 
Italy is almost an island — her people are 
natural sailors, whilst Fiume in the hands 
of a new, undeveloped nation would give 
England little concern as rivals. 

We have given an authoritative rec- 
ord, a statistical summary of American 
participation in the great war. No men- 
tion was made of any one beneficiary — 
yet Belgium sends her heroic primate, 
Cardinal Mercier, to thank the American 
people in person, for the aid they gave 
Belgium during the war. Contrast this 
with the fact that Italy sent General Jo- 
seph Garibaldi on a special mission to 
the United States, not to thank us for 
what we have done for her, but to im- 
plore justice — to beg the privilege of 
having what rightfully belongs to her. 
General Joseph Garibaldi is the grand- 
son of the great Italian liberator. In 



1 8 PROLOGUE 

1914 he was fighting as an officer in the 
French army, but when Italy entered the 
war he resigned his commission and en- 
listed as a private in an Italian regiment 
and was gradually promoted to his pres- 
ent high rank. 

Over four centuries have come and 
gone since the great Genoese navigator 
gave the New World to the Old. Na- 
tions are proverbially ungrateful, they 
sap and mine without acknowledgment 
or thanks. Italy led the way in the eman- 
cipation of human thought by the Re- 
naissance, by the production of the 
world's masterpieces in art; her title to 
the honor of having established the first 
bank is unquestionable, but Venice and 
Genoa still dispute the claim to priority. 
The oldest bank in Europe is in Naples. 
What has America done in recognition of 
any obligation to Italy? What has the 
United States done? Through our pres- 
ident we have wrought Italy a most ig- 
noble service! "Italy, threatened by in- 



PROLOGUE 19 

ternal fires, shaken by earthquakes, titanic 
but picturesque even in her calamities, 
has had more than her share of rich 
human experiences." The writer makes 
an appeal, an earnest supplication to the 
good public, not for herself but for the 
maimed or blinded soldiers and sailors 
of Italy. 



CHAPTER I 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY * 

"The happy must ever be humble 

Ambition must ^wait for the years 
Ere hoping to ivin the approval 

Of a ivorld that looks on through its tears." 

A HE movement in Southern Europe 
which culminated in the unification of 
Italy and her enrollment as a nation 
among the great powers, forms a spec- 
tacle as interesting as it is unique: inter- 
esting, because no subject touches man 



* "The Unification of Italy," comprising the first six 
chapters of this little book, was written for the Fortnightly 
of Chicago and read before that Association on the loth of 
January, 1896; if the reader is inclined to think it was a 
breach of good taste to publish an essay written so XongyCLqo ^ 
the seeming want of knowledge on that particular sub- 
ject by the President of the United States, Woodrow Wil- 
son, and his determination to enforce the terms of the 
treaty of Paris at the expense of Italy's claims to Fiurae 
should be an excuse for and a vindication of the act. 

21 



22 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

more closely than the growth and devel- 
opment of liberty — ''The choicest gift 
which heaven hath bestowed upon man- 
kind" — and unique, first, because it was 
the triumph of principles over political 
intrigue and monarchical tradition; sec- 
ond, it was attained more by consent, 
than by conquest; thirdly, because in 
Italy, the literary controversy between 
the classicist and romantic schools, trans- 
formed itself into a political question. 
The romanticists, who sought emancipa- 
tion from literary despotism, soon found 
themselves, in their efforts to maintain 
the struggle, hampered and restricted by 
the government. Their demand for the 
privilege of writing in the name of in- 
dividual inspiration and freedom was 
capable of a double interpretation and 
might mean a demand for liberty of a 
broader and more universal application. 
It was so regarded by the Authorities, 
and the organs through which their dis- 
cussions were circulated, ''The Antologia 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 23 

Firenze," "The Indicatore Genovese" 
and others, were suppressed. 

Thus all were made to see, that, if the 
people who wrote were to be emancipated 
from the despotism which had its origin 
two thousand years before; if literature 
was to enter on a new development and 
nobly respond to the expanding needs of 
an awakening community, the people 
must be able to answer in the affirmative 
the question. Have we a country? For 
that is the question which asked itself. 
The succeeding generation answered it 
by inscribing a maledictory epitaph on 
the past, and singing the canticle of the 
future in no uncertain key. Their reward 
was often imprisonment and banishment, 
or worse, but, robbed of her birth-right of 
freedom, the genius of Italy put forth her 
claim to the birth-right of intellect and 
there was an awakening of patriotic senti- 
ment and national feeling in the new 
literature as pronounced, as its absence in 
the past had been conspicuous. 



24 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Mazzini, in his manifesto to "Young 
Italy/' wrote : "Great revolutions are the 
work rather of principles than of bay- 
onets, and are achieved first in the moral, 
afterwards in the material sphere." In 
that phrase Mazzini struck the keynote 
to Italian regeneration. It will be the 
purpose of this paper to illustrate, as far 
as is practicable, the truth of his state- 
ment by calling attention to a few of the 
many causes, political, social and literary, 
which enabled Italy after a disunion of 
fourteen centuries, to compass so sud- 
denly and unexpectedly the realization 
of her national identity. 

The Napoleonic occupation of Italy, 
which, ending in 1814, had lasted eight- 
een 3^ears, gave to the people their first 
impulse in the direction of freedom and 
national organization. The Revolution 
having destroyed royal despotism and 
abolished class privileges in France, at 
once set itself about giving liberty to 
other peoples. The infant republic, in 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 2$ 

order not to die in its cradle, must be 
surrounded and sustained by other re- 
publics. The Kings of Europe, by in- 
vading French territory and attempting 
to dictate to the people their form of 
government and the character of their 
rulers, in the early days of the revolution, 
had forced this alternative; and Napo- 
leon, as yet but the agent of France, con- 
quered Italy in the name of freedom. 
To her he went at first only as a deliverer. 
He swept away the unequal, iniquitous 
and oppressive laws they had inherited 
from feudal ages, substituting a code, the 
same for baron as for peasant. He equal- 
ized taxation and" destroyed local jeal- 
ousies. By chasing away the corrupt and 
alien dukes and princes, he reduced the 
governments from fifteen to three. Lead- 
ing his army down on the plains of Aus- 
tria and within sight of Vienna, he dic- 
tated to Francis H the famous treaty of 
Campo-Formio, by the terms of which 
Austria ceded to France, Flanders and 



26 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Savoy; allowed Lombardy and other 
states of Italy to be formed into a com- 
monwealth upon the model of the new 
French Republic, to be known as the Cis- 
Alpine-Republic. Against these losses 
Austria received Venice, minus the Ion- 
ian Islands. This was in 1797. In a fare- 
well address to the citizens of this new 
republic, Napoleon said: ^'We have 
given you liberty; take care to preserve 
it. Divided and bowed down for ages 
by tyranny you could not have conquered 
your freedom, but, in a few years, left 
to yourselves, no power on earth will be 
strong enough to wrest it from you. Till 
then, this great nation will protect you 
from your neighbors; its political sys- 
tem will be united to yours. An order 
from my government or an immediate 
danger to the Cis-Alpine-Republic, will 
alone bring me back among you." The 
fair promises, however, which his Tus- 
can blood had prompted him to make, 
of giving to the whole Italian family 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 27 

some form of government comprising 
unity and freedom, he was never able to 
fulfill. Self-imposed obligations of ex- 
tending the area of conquests necessitated 
vast armies, and Italy was compelled to 
furnish her quota of conscripts. Suc- 
cumbing thus to a military despotism, 
she soon learned she had but exchanged 
masters. 

Of the 30,000 soldiers Italy sent to aid 
in the conquest of Spain less than 9,000 
returned to Italy; and of the 27,000 who 
reached the snows of Russia, only 1,000 
saw again home and country. But the 
Italian soldiers, fighting side by side, 
gained renown with the famous victories 
of the Emperor; they gained also what 
was of more vital consequence, although 
it does not ornament to the same degree 
the pages of history. They gained a 
knowledge of themselves, their present 
and previous conditions. They learned 
to look upon each other as men of one 
country. What is so potent to unite men 



2S ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

in the bond of brotherly love as expe- 
riencing together terrible hardships, or 
sharing thrilling adventures? Witness 
the reunion of army veterans! Can he 
who has suffered shipwreck look with in- 
difference on the fortunes of a former 
companion in misery? The Italians 
learned too, that ^'their ancient republics 
had successively fallen only because they 
had never been true to each other; be- 
cause each of them had hoped to survive 
alone." That passionate but misdirected 
patriotism which had formerly been lim- 
ited to city or duchy, broadened and 
deepened so as to comprise the whole 
Italian-speaking race. They were be- 
ginning to see that Italy could be one 
country, or no country, and they were 
filled with hatred of the French. Water- 
loo came; Napoleon fell. The destiny of 
Italy was manipulated at a congress in 
which Italy herself was not represented. 
The country was divided into ten sep- 
arate, nominally independent govern- 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 29 

ments, but all, not excepting the Papal 
dominion, with all its prestige of spirit- 
ual authority, virtually under a compact 
of unqualified vassalage to Austria. "By 
a strange combination of adversities, 
Italy had one and ten masters." She 
suffered all the evils of division and en- 
joyed none of the advantages of central- 
ization of power. But of her 25,000,000 
of inhabitants less than one-fifth could 
read. The obstacles in the way of na- 
tional education were innumerable and 
almost insurmountable. Among them 
were the censorship proscribing all or- 
gans of public opinion; the insecurity of 
the Post Office; the harassing acts of an 
arbitrary, irresponsible, all-searching po- 
lice; the active influence of a dark swarm 
of priests and Jesuits, exasperated by re- 
cent reverses and proceeding with all the 
animosity of men struggling for exist- 
ence ; about every third day a holiday and 
every twenty-third inhabitant a priest. 
In the universities, the chairs of political 



so ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

economy and moral philosophy were 
abolished ; no study was allowed in which 
there was the slightest allusion to the 
rights and duties of man. The flower of 
Italian youth had perished in foreign 
lands fighting the battles of their enemies. 
The total destitution of arms, ammuni- 
tion, or leaders. A population aching 
from the recollection of recent calamities, 
in terror of the foreign armies quartered 
in their midst. With all this, ten capi- 
tals, ten courts with their respective 
rulers furnishing their subjects with en- 
ervating pleasures, thereby misleading 
the understanding, corrupting the senses 
of those whom they would enslave. In 
this pitiable condition Italy lay crushed, 
benumbed and almost helpless. Yet her 
patriots despaired not; they did the only 
thing left them to do; they enrolled 
themselves as members of secret societies 
and thereby perpetuated and extended 
the love of liberty and the desire for rep- 
resentative government. Within a few 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 3 1 

years Italy, from Mt. Etna to the Alps, 
was tunneled and honey-combed by these 
unseen, yet powerful organizations. The 
"League Noir," formed soon after the 
Napoleonic conquest, so dreaded by the 
French, played no small part in expell- 
ing them from the country. Next came 
"The Carbonari," which had its origin 
in a few Neapolitan Republicans seek- 
ing refuge from the returning govern- 
ments, in the Abruzzi mountains and in 
Calabria. They formed a brotherhood, 
naming it after the chief pursuits of those 
parts, the manufacture of charcoal. 
Their meetings they styled venditi, or 
sales. It is estimated that 700,000 men, 
comprising the most intelligent and pa- 
triotic of the citizens of the country, were 
members. Napoleon III, Charles Al- 
bert, Lord Byron and Mazzini were at 
some time Carbonari. The Setti of "The 
Carbonari" was followed by "Young 
Italy," founded by Giuseppi Mazzini in 
1 83 1. Its declared aim was revolution; 



32 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

its means, essentially education; its or- 
gan, a journal published in Marseilles, 
called "La Giovane Italia" and dissemi- 
nated throughout Italy by means of se- 
cret agents. It was the aim of "Young 
Italy" to liberate the country, leaving the 
form of government to be determined by 
a vote of the whole people. Mazzini 
himself was Republican. He wrote: 
"There are no monarchical elements in 
Italy. We have no powerful and re- 
spected aristocracy to take the interme- 
diate place between the throne and the 
people. No dynasty of Italian princes 
with traditions of glory or of important 
services rendered to the State, command- 
ing the affection of the people. All the 
Italian traditions are Republican. The 
introduction of monarchy into Italy was 
coeval with its decay and it consummated 
our ruin by its constant servility to the 
foreigner, and antagonism to unity." Ces- 
eresco says: "Mazzini did not succeed 
in making the majority of his country- 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 33 

men Republicans, but he did more than 
any other man towards inspiring the 
whole country with the desire for unity." 
Herein lies his great work. ^^Without 
Mazzini," she writes, "when would the 
Italians have gotten beyond the fallacies 
of federal republics, leagues of princes, 
provincial autonomy, insular home rule 
and all the other dreams of independ- 
ence?" 



CHAPTER II 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 

1 O those who like to trace in indi- 
viduals, the logical outcome of great 
social upheavals, Italy, during the first 
half of the 19th Century, furnishes a sig- 
nal occasion. The action of certain social 
conditions on great minds and the action 
of those minds on the masses, changing 
their ideals and shaping their opinions, 
constitute much of what we recognize as 
humanity's advance in social culture. Of 
the many notable persons who, acting 
and acted upon, became famous in con- 
nection with the cause of popular free- 
dom at this period, four names are in- 
separably associated as the makers of 
Modern Italy: Victor Emmanuel, Count 
Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini. 

The works they accomplished, though 
not always done in harmony one with the 
34 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 35 

Other, are facts irrevocably committed to 
history. Each seems to have been, by 
Providence, educated, trained and fitted 
for his one single work, and it is impos- 
sible now to conceive of the same happy 
results without that slow and often pain- 
ful, but special discipline to which each 
and all were subjected in their widely 
different spheres. It is no disparage- 
ment of the King, the statesman, or the 
hero, to say that in lofty and sustained 
elevation of character, in simple piety, in 
love, embracing all mankind, Mazzini 
leads them all. His career presents the 
strange spectacle of a revolutionary 
leader, who is before all a religious and 
ethical teacher; his was the task of edu- 
cating the people to a true perception of 
the indirect benefits surrounding all kinds 
of self-government. "It was by the dif- 
fusion of ideas," Ceseresco says, '^that 
Young Italy became a commanding 
factor in the events of the next thirty 
years.'' Mazzini has given us some of 



36 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

the sources of his inspiration. Walking 
one day in the streets of Genoa, his 
native city, with his mother and Senor 
Gambini, a friend, it was just after the 
suppression of the Piedmontese insur- 
rection in 1 821; the city was thronged 
with revolutionists seeking safety by sea 
and wanting means to escape to Spain, 
where the revolution was yet triumphant. 
Most of them were crowded upon the 
wharf, but not a few had penetrated into 
the city. "Suddenly," said he, ''we were 
stopped by a tall black-bearded man, with 
a severe and energetic countenance and a 
fiery glance I have never forgotten. He 
held out a white handkerchief to us 
merely saying, 'For the refugees of Italy.' 
My mother and friend dropped some 
money into the handkerchief and he 
turned from us to put the same question 
to others. "The idea of an existing wrong 
in my own country against which it was 
my duty to struggle, and the thought that 
I too must bear my part in that struggle, 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 37 

flashed before my mind on that day for 
the first time never again to leave me. 
The remembrance of those refugees, 
many of whom became my friends in 
after life, pursued me wherever I went 
by day and mingled with my dreams by 
night. I used to seek them out among 
our own people and could generally tell 
them by some peculiarity of dress, their 
warlike appearance, or more frequently 
by the signs of a deep and silent sorrow 
on their faces." This simple incident de- 
termined him to renounce the career of 
literature, for which he was eminently 
fitted, for that of political action. He 
became a Carbonaro in 1827. In '31 he 
was betrayed into the hands of the police, 
imprisoned in the fortress of Savona and 
five months later exiled from his native 
city. It was during these months of im- 
prisonment that he conceived the plan of 
the Association "La Giovane Italia." In 
a little cell at the top of the fortress, from 
which he could see nothing but the sea 



38 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

and sky — ^'two symbols of the eternal," 
as he said, "and, except the Alps, the sub- 
limest things in Nature." From Savona 
he went to Marseilles which had become 
the refuge of about two thousand Italian 
exiles. Here he wrote his famous letter 
to Charles Albert on his accession to the 
Sardinian throne. In that letter he 
points out the possibility of uniting all 
Italy in one grand struggle for Italian 
independence. Begs the King to speak 
the word which shall make Italy free. 
Mazzini endeavors to rouse him to noble 
ambition by reminding him that "there 
is a crown brighter and nobler than that 
of Piedmont — a crown that only aw^aits a 
man bold enough to conceive the idea of 
wearing it; resolute and determined 
enough to consecrate himself wholly to 
the realization of that idea, and virtuous 
enough not to dim its splendor with ig- 
noble tyranny." Moreover, if the King 
do not put himself at the head of the 
struggle for Italian independence, he 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 39 

may retard, but cannot prevent the ful- 
fillment of the destiny of the Italian 
people as ordained by God himself: "If 
you do not do this, others will; they will 
do it without you, against you. What- 
soever that answer be, rest assured that 
posterity will either hail your name as 
that of the greatest of men, or the last of 
Italian tyrants.'' The immediate effect 
of this letter, was an order for Maz- 
zini's arrest should he attempt to cross 
the frontier. — Seventeen years later 
Charles Albert granted his subjects a 
Parliamentary Constitution. — Mariotti 
says that: "Mazzini's letter to Charles 
Albert was a flash of divine eloquence, 
such as never before shone over Italy." 
His companions in misfortune gathered 
in adoration and bent before his powerful 
genius. "He was in the prime of youth, 
with beauty of the first order; a frank 
and manly, yet winning and persuasive 
address gave him an easy victory over 
men's minds through their hearts." He 



40 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

did not fail to make the best use of this 
well deserved popularity; before a year 
had passed he became the heart and soul 
of the Italian movement. He was the 
ruler of a State of his own creation. The 
King of ^'Young Italy." There were sev- 
eral insurrectional attempts made by or 
under the guidance of "Young Italy/' 
none of them successful ; nor was it likely 
they should succeed; planned by exiles at 
a distance, except zeal, they lacked all 
the elements of success. Each insurrec- 
tionary attempt was followed by many 
executions and countless sentences to long 
terms of imprisonment, but amidst the 
depression which succeeded these fail- 
ures, Mazzini rose supreme in hope. He 
had abiding faith in the people; in the 
true instincts of the Italian heart, mute 
at that time but revealed to him by his- 
tory and his own previsions of the future. 
Then remembering Rome, the alma 
mater of Christendom, how, to her alone 
had it been given twice to guide and di- 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 4 1 

rect the world, he asked: ''Why should 
not a new Rome, the Rome of the Italian 
people, arise to create a third and still 
vaster unity; to link together heaven and 
earth, right and duty, and make known 
to men their mission here below?" then, 
when the affairs of Italy, directed by im- 
moral materialists, seemed to condemn 
his hopes, — ^when the day of redemption 
seemed more remote than ever he said: 
"But what is death to other lands is only 
sleep to ours." It might be instructive to 
continue this great man's life through his 
thirty-seven years of exile in London; it 
would be profitable to consider his phil- 
anthropic work; his writings, so far in 
advance of his time, that the world has 
not yet caught up with them, but we can 
do no more than mention the mighty in- 
tellectual forces he set in motion previous 
to 1835. 



CHAPTER III 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 



T 



HE Italian people were unanimous 
in the desire for independence, but there 
were three separate plans for gaining the 
coveted blessing, hence three political 
parties. The Republican, of which Maz- 
zini was the soul; a second which looked 
upon the Supreme Pontif as the natural 
head of the Italian Union; a third, the 
Constitutional Monarchists, represented 
by Count Camillo Cavour, which de- 
sired to unite the rest of Italy to Sardinia 
with Victor Emmanuel for their King. 
All parties looked to Rome as their 
eventual capital. Pio Nono, in the be- 
ginning of his pontificate, 1846, showed 
decided interest in and sympathy for the 
cause of Italian Unity, but '^the illusion 
of a Constitutional Pope ended in his 
flight to Gaeta and the dissolution of the 
42 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 43 

temporal power, regarded by many now 
as the most momentous event of the 19th 
Century." Ceseresco says that, "Pope 
Pius IX was, only in a limited degree, 
responsible for his want of success, be- 
cause the task he had set before himself, 
was the quadrature of the circle in poli- 
tics." The Moderate Party, as the Con- 
stitutional Monarchists were called, was 
destined to succeed. Under the far-see- 
ing statesmanship of Cavour, aided by the 
intrepid hero Garibaldi and encouraged 
by "il re galantuomo," * Victor Emman- 
uel, little Piedmont was enabled to gather 
together the whole Italian race, except- 
ing Venice and the Papal states, and to 



* Victor Emmanuel said one day to his Minister 
d'Azelio, that of all professions, that of King was the 
last he would have chosen. D'Azelio replied, "But there 
have been so few honest Kings, what a grand thing it 
would be to head the list as Re Galantuomo! — (honest 
King). The words struck Victor Emmanuel's fancy and 
soon thereafter when the Census-Register was brought for 
him to sign — under the head Profession — he wrote "Re 
Galantuomo." Thus he gave himself the title by which 
he will always be remembered. 



44 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

rise from an insignificant state of little 
importance, to a respectable position 
among the Great Powers. 

Victor Emmanuel, although at first not 
popular, possessed the very qualities es- 
sential to satisfy the needs and excite the 
admiration of his future subjects. He 
had courage, — a quality which is the envy 
of the timid as well as the brave. Vic- 
tims for centuries of the perfidy and men- 
dacity of their rulers, what attribute 
could serve a people so well as simple, 
old-fashioned honesty? Victor Em- 
manuel bristled with it! Pride is the 
reigning characteristic of the Italian 
race, whether Prince or peasant, from 
North or South. Victor Emmanuel could 
match them in their specialty. Had he 
been directly descended from Jupiter, he 
could not have been prouder than he was 
of being a Sabaude. And who were these 
Sabaude who thought so much of them- 
selves? There's a tiny country of half a 
million people, lying just South of 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 45 

Geneva and Mount Blanc, in the 4th 
Century called Sabaudia and now Savoy, 
as poor in this world's goods, as rich in 
great men. We could give a score of 
distinguished names, familiar to you all, 
from the Popes Nicholas II and Inno- 
cent V to the brothers de Maistre, the 
younger of whom, Xavier, wrote that ex- 
quisite prose poem "Voyage antour de ma 
Chombre" and "La Prisonier du Cau- 
case." From the earliest accounts these 
Sabauds were famous for courage, love 
of country, and honesty. Poverty com- 
pels them to go out to service in more 
prosperous lands. To satisfy the long- 
ings of the heart, keep alive the home 
feeling and sing together the ballads of 
their native vales, they go out in com- 
panies, and generally return. A Savo- 
yard needs no certificate of character. 
But these are not the characteristics of a 
Southern race. The Sabauds are of 
Northern origin. Add to these virtues 
the fact that Victor Emmanuel traces his 



46 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

blood back through nine centuries of 
brave rulers, "and not a tyrant among 
them." If one could not be one's own 
self, who would "not be a Sabaud"? Vic- 
tor Emmanuel had one fault which 
would have marred his character greatly 
among English speaking peoples but to 
the Italians, so long corrupted by evil 
influences, it may have served as a tie; 
something to link him to his subjects and 
reconcile them to his sterling virtues. 
Godkin says: "Few rulers understood 
as well as Victor Emmanuel the busi- 
ness of being a King;" 'tis equally true 
that few Kings have found a Cavour 
ready made at hand. Ten years the 
King's senior, Cavour had looked for- 
ward to the time when he would be the 
Minister of Italy. His life's work had 
been a preparation for that office, and 
he had spent much time in London study- 
ing the sources of England's greatness. 
In 1854 war broke out between the Wes- 
tern Powers and Russia. A treaty of 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 47 

alliance was made between England, 
France and Sardinia, by which the latter 
agreed to send 25,000 soldiers to the 
Crimea. This treaty was a master-stroke 
of policy! By the courage, the discipline 
of that little band of Italian soldiers, a 
reputation was established for soldierlike 
qualities not inferior to the best armies of 
Europe. The defeat of Novara was 
wiped out. There was a nucleus now for 
an Italian army. The people were en- 
couraged. That treaty of alliance made 
Italy. Henceforward, she must be recog- 
nized as a Nation. Cavour represented 
Sardinia at the next peace congress, and 
for the first time in a European Council, 
the voice of Italy was heard in her own 
justification and defense. The relations 
between France and Sardinia were now 
very friendly. Victor Emmanuel gave 
his daughter, Clotilde, in marriage to 
Prince Napoleon, cousin of Napoleon 
III and out of the Plombiere interviews 
in the Vosges Mountains grew that alii- 



48 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

ance with France which resulted in driv- 
ing the Austrians from Northern Italy, 
except from Venice. Napoleon failed to 
carry out the whole of his promise to 
''free Italy from the Alps to Mt. Aetna," 
and when the little account was settled 
Italy was constrained to cede to France, 
Nice and Savoy. This was a bitter rev- 
elation to the Italian people and particu- 
larly to Garibaldi, who was born in Nice. 
He forgave Cavour, but could never for- 
get it. To Victor Emmanuel it was also 
a sacrifice for Savoy "was the cradle of 
his race and the grave of his fathers." 
Count Cavour lived to see Victor Em- 
manuel proclaimed King of Italy, thanks 
to the sword of Garibaldi. Southern 
Italy with its 9,000,000 people had been 
annexed to the Kingdom of the North. 
Nothing was left out in the cold, but 
Venice and the Papal States. Cavour was 
a true Catholic such — as Mazzini — op- 
posed to the temporal power. His life 
was no doubt shortened by the harassing 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 49 

anxieties he had undergone in his efforts 
to unite Italy and separate church and 
state. Almost his last words, uttered in 
delirium, were, 'Trate, Frate, libera 
chiesa in libero stato." (Brother, Brother, 
a free church in a free state.) It was left 
to a later Ministry to take advantage of 
war between Austria and Prussia, make a 
treaty with the latter and gain Venice. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 



w 



E come now to the strange eventful 
history of Garibaldi, the actual facts of 
whose life seem more improbable than 
the wildest fiction. Designed for the 
priesthood, he took to the sea. Loving 
Italy, he joined the Piedmontese navy as 
a common sailor, to make converts to 
"Young Italy" among the Marines. Sen- 
tenced to death for this act, he escaped to 
South America. Soldier of fortune 
there, he never sought to enrich himself, 
except in knowledge of warfare, which 
he meant to turn to account in liberating 
his country. With one eye ever on Italy, 
he returned at the right moment. After 
an absence of twelve years, he came back 
the famous hero of "Montevideo." * The 



* If Garibaldi entered Montevidio in the humble call- 
ing of a cattle drover, he left after having led the Uru- 

50 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 5 J 

revolution of '48 was on. He offered his 
services to the Pope, then to Charles 
Albert. They were rejected. Hearing 
there was a revolution in Rome, he went 
there. A republic was proclaimed as 
glorious as it was short-lived. ''No gov- 
ernment ever came into power in a more 
strictly legal manner," but ten votes 
against it. Cardinal Antonelli, in the 
name of the Pope, demanded the armed 
intervention of France, Austria, Spain 
and Naples. Pius IX was the 26th Pon- 
tif who called in the aid of a foreigner. 
In Rome, Garibaldi was again associated 
with Mazzini, whom he always called 
"Master." 

We must leave the fall of Rome, more 
glorious than any victory, for the men- 
tion of that feat of arms in the Sicilies, 
which gave to Sardinia's King 9,000,000 
subjects. One hesitates to set down in 

guayans in throwing off the Spanish yoke. It was there 
too, in that little South American Republic that he wooed 
and won his faithful Anita. 



52 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

black and white at the close of the 19th 
Century, accounts that rival in romance 
the deeds of the Cid-Cam'peado're, but 
the events are now history. Garibaldi 
raised a company of one thousand men; 
they were all picked men; ^'few and 
good" said the Chief.* With this handful 
he conquered The Two Sicilies against 
its army of 120,000 men, and handed the 
government over to Victor Emmanuel. 
Jessie White Mario has written the life 
of Garibaldi. She certainly earned the 
privilege, for she was* the Florence 
Nightingale to his wounded in many a 
campaign. An Italian historian has 
feared that the Neapolitans gained their 
freedom too easily to know how to prize 
it. He forgot, for the moment, that the 
subjects of Ferdinand II had paid the 
price of liberty an hundredfold in his 
dungeons alone; in the Maschio, twenty- 



* Except 30,cxx) lire sent Garibaldi by Mazzini to 
transport his i,ooo men from Genoa to Southern Italy — 
they received no pecuniary aid. 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 53 

four feet below the level of the sea. The 
thousands of historical glorious martyrs 
who gave their lives that Italy might live, 
who can enumerate? the unchronicled in- 
glorious ones, who will remember? Yet 
no drop of blood is wasted, since blood 
redeemed the world! No one would 
counsel martyrdom, though we all revere 
it. Yet man is in duty bound to live or 
die for the faith that is in him, and there 
often comes a time when to die is the only 
way to prove that faith; then, and then 
only is martyrdom a holy sacrament: 
"The outward and visible sign of an in- 
ward and spiritual grace." Was it not 
thus with the Martyrs of Cosenza? Who 
dares to sit in judgment on the conscience 
of the brothers, Bandiera? Arms was 
their profession. They were Venetians 
and noble, sons of Baron Bandiera, rear 
admiral of the Austrian navy, and from 
earliest childhood had worshipped the 
idea of Italian unity. Against the advice 
of Mazzini, in spite of entreaties of wife 



54 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

and mother, in spite of offers of pardon 
from Rannieri, viceroy of Lombardy, 
Venice, if they would return to their alle- 
giance, they sacrificed their lives in the 
vain attempt to lead an insurrection near 
Naples. These men were betrayed by a 
man named Boccachiampi, who joined 
them at Corfu and sailed with them to 
Calabria. When near the place where 
they expected to find the insurgents they 
were to lead, they missed Boccachiampi 
from their number and when they ar- 
rived at the place, he was there before 
them; but, it was an ambush. They were 
surrounded by Neapolitan troops and 
those who did not die fighting were after- 
wards shot — twenty of them. Boccachi- 
ampi was condemned to a short nominal 
imprisonment, and when released he 
wrote to a Greek girl of Corfu, to whom 
he was betrothed, to m,eet him in Naples, 
that they might be married. The girl 
had been deeply in love with him and 
had already given him a part of her 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 55 

dowry, but she answered '^A traitor can- 
not wed a Greek maiden. I bear with 
me the blessing of my parents. On you 
rests the curse of God." 

The martyrdom of the Bandieras made 
a great impression wherever the Italian 
language was spoken and especially in 
England, where the facts came to light 
that their correspondence with Mazzini 
had been tampered with in the English 
Post Office and that information as to 
their plans had reached the Austrian and 
Neapolitan Governments through the 
British Foreign Office. The letters of 
the elder brother, Attilio, to Mazzini, 
which we have read, express nothing but 
the highest conceptions of right and duty. 
This martyrdom at Cosenza took place 
in '44. Seven years later William E. 
Gladstone went to Naples for the health 
of a little daughter. While there, he was 
led to make a personal examination into 
the condition and treatment of political 
prisoners, — victims of the revolution of 



56 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

two years before and victims of the per- 
fidy of their sovereign. When he had 
possessed himself of the facts, he disclosed 
the same in two letters to Lord Aberdeen. 
The conditions of those 20,000 political 
prisoners is too revolting for disclosure 
and we pass it by, although the recital 
would enable you to understand better 
the innumerable voluntary sacrifices of 
life which become so common in 
Southern Italy. 

When the Gladstone letters were dis- 
cussed in Parliament, Lord Palmerston, 
after commending Mr. Gladstone in the 
highest terms for the course he had pur- 
sued in Naples, announced that he had 
had copies of these letters sent to every 
English Ambassador in Europe with the 
injunction, that, in the interest of human- 
ity, they should bring them under the 
notice of the courts to which they were 
severally accredited. These letters 
aroused the sympathy and indignation of 
Christendom, and did much to smooth 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 57 

the way for what Garibaldi, Cavour, Na- 
poleon III and Bismarck effected later, 
although there was no perceptible change 
in the conduct of the Neapolitan Govern- 
ment. Several years later in '57 over 
three hundred young men led by Carlo 
Pisacane, son of a Neapolitan Duke, 
landed at Sapri, in the Province of 
Salerno. Pisacane was an extremist in 
politics and was one of the few who 
would as soon live under the dominion of 
Austria as that of Savoy. 'Tor me," he 
wrote, "it will be victory even though I 
die on the scaffold. I have only my affec- 
tions and my life to give, and I give them 
without hesitation." Three hundred 
were cut in pieces by the royal troops. 
Baron Nicotera w^as taken alive and was 
imprisoned till freed by Garibaldi three 
years later. The Sicilian poet, Luige 
Mercantini, has commemorated the event 
of the three hundred by a very beautiful 
ballad entitled 'The Gleaners of Sapri." 



CHAPTER V 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 



T 



HE part which literature played in 
the liberation of Italy is quite beyond 
computation; but poetry and fiction were 
certainly among the greatest factors. The 
Italian people, passionate, imaginative 
and singularly romantic, when once their 
hearts were stirred, knew how to sway 
others, and patriotism became something 
more than sentiment; it became religion, 
a divine transport, a fever in the bones, 
and spread like a prairie fire. It wrapped 
in its embrace every sect and school, 
classic or romantic. Men wrote and 
women read — a rare thing in Italy. The 
whole Peninsula was submerged as it 
were, by an emotional wave, which has 
no parallel in modern times and recalls 
the strange phenomena of the Mediaeval 
revivals. Yet long before this, when the 
58 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 59 

French revolution was still in the future, 
Italian literature began to throw off the 
servile spirit of dependence which cen- 
turies of degradation had induced, and 
talent manifested itself in behalf of a 
more manly and moral conception of in- 
dividual and social life. Goldoni re- 
deemed comedy from the slavery of 
imitation and the reproach of absurdity. 
He possessed great originality and inex- 
haustible humor, and furnished the 
Italian stage with one hundred and 
twenty most amusing comedies and gave 
to the world his own autobiography, the 
greatest comedy of all. In his "Caviliere 
e la Dama" he mildly portrays, without 
hint of reproach, cicisbeism, that fash- 
ionable demoralization which flourished 
in Italy for fifty years previous to the 
French conquest. This mild form of in- 
sanity got its cure, however, from the pen 
of Abbe Parini who initiated a return to 
reality by describing with delicate irony 
this peculiar combination of vice and 



6o ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

folly, in his one great poem ''A Day in 
Town" which he w^as over forty years in 
composing. In it he minutely and 
graphically depicts the daily life of his 
hero, a carpet knight, a Lombard noble- 
man — a caviliere. At the end he draws 
a contrast between the caviliere and his 
illustrious ancestors. Of course the satire 
is sustained and the ancestors suffer by 
comparison. Many writers think this 
work led the way to the flood of patriotic 
literature which followed. 

Alfieri, whose career closed in 1803, 
was born of an ancient noble Piedmontese 
family, and possessed more pride and ar- 
rogance than usually falls to the lot even 
of Kings. After a dissolute youth spent 
in search of adventure and having, as yet, 
manifested neither talent, taste nor abil- 
ity, he suddenly transformed himself into 
a great tragic poet. His inspiration was 
the Countess of Albany, wife of the last 
of the Stewarts ; a woman as distinguished 
for intellect as for rank. Hatred of 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 6 1 

Kings and contempt for poetry were, with 
him, congenital, and he seems to have 
taken delight in nursing these twin 
hatreds till he was past twenty-five, when, 
suddenly, to please his lady-love, he 
wrote in the incredibly short time of 
seven years, fourteen tragedies — some of 
them of great power — A treatise on ty- 
ranny (prose) and "The Prince & Let- 
ters" (prose), which made him take 
rank, as a prose writer, with Machiavelli. 
In the latter work he showed himself an 
ardent Republican. Alfieri introduced 
into Italy an entire new style of composi- 
tion, substituting a vigorous, compact 
dialogue, a masculine concise style, for 
the smooth and effeminate manner of his 
predecessors. He dispensed with all 
superfluous characters — some of his plays 
having but five or six dramatis personae. 
Ristori * played his '^Mirra" here in Chi- 



*When the Italian actress, Adelaide Ristori, was in 
Chicago, the Fortnightly gave a breakfast to the great 
tragedienne. At that time the only members of the 



62 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

cago and Salvini his ^'Merope" and 
^^Saul." 

Giudici says that with Alfieri, as with 
the Greeks, art arose spontaneously. 
When he felt irresistibly moved to write 
tragedy, he was ignorant of the Greek 
language and probably did not know the 
names of the Greek dramatists, so, "he 
created his ideals by pure instinctive force 
of genius." Giudici says too, that "Greek 
tragedy touched the same height in Al- 
fieri's ^SauP as it did in the Prometheus 
of Aeschylus — two dramas which are, 
perhaps, the most gigantic creations of 
any literature." The situations which 



society who spoke both French and Italian were the 
President, Kate Newell Doggett and Mary L. Matz 
(Mrs. Otto Matz), so Mme. Ristori was seated at the 
right of the President and next to her Mrs. Mary Matz. 
At the end of the repast Mme. Ristori very graciously 
gavfe the ladies a short recitation. 

On another occasion the society entertained the great 
Tomaso Salvini, but not at a breakfast. He told the 
ladies his sixteen year old daughter had never seen her 
father act. It was not considered proper for a young 
woman of her immature years to attend a theater. 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 63 

Alfieri has chosen to portray in his trage- 
dies, have a visible relation to the social 
state. It is always resistance to oppres- 
sion, man against man, people against 
tyrant. He not only had contempt for 
Kings, but scorned even those who liked 
them. And Metastassio, by his subserv- 
iency to the Kings and Queens of Austria, 
earned his everlasting disdain.* 

MONTI 

But of all the songsters who warbled 
notes of "linked sweetness, long drawn 
out," Vincenzo Monti was the rarest 
bird; so rare, that of such there could 
never be a flock. It matters not where 
he was born so that he was. He early 
gave promise of becoming a successful 
rival of that extraordinary genius, Al- 
fieri. His tragedy of "Aristodemo" was 
received with great enthusiasm and still 

* In the Minoriten Kirche of Vienna, the writer saw a 
very beautiful marble nnonument in commemoration of 
the poet Metastassio. 



64 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

excites surprise and delight, in the minds 
of those who read it, as a production of 
great power and finish, for the work of so 
young a man. When a Republic was es- 
tablished in Italy Monti's works pro- 
claimed him an ardent Republican. But 
Napoleon decided that a stern military 
rule was best for Italy, and, with that 
consummate knowledge of human nature, 
which characterized all his dealings with 
men, he chose Monti for one of his apos- 
tles. He decorated him (as he did later 
Goethe) with the ^'Grand Cross of the 
Legion of Honor." Made him assessor 
of the Ministry of the Interior, His- 
toriographer of the Kingdom, "Knight 
of the Iron Crown" and Court Poet, and 
Monti glorified in song the "Imperial 
Hero." On the downfall of Napoleon 
his blushing honors vanished, like mist 
before a gale. His fall however, was not 
like Lucifer's never to rise again; he 
picked himself up and set his muse to 
magnifying the splendors of the House 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 65 

of Hapsburg. In his later writings 
Monti did not fulfil the promises of his 
youth. Whether his Pegasus balked from 
being spurred in such contrary directions, 
or whether his inspirations were dissi- 
pated in mere recantations, are questions 
for the critics, whose hands are too full 
now in trying to determine what he might 
have been as well as what he was. Al- 
though Monti in his specialty had no 
peer, his very versatility ruined him. He 
lost the esteem of his contemporaries and 
was classed with the despised few who 
knew how to shout for freedom, but 
could not suffer for it. 

UGO FOSCOLO 

To Ugo Foscolo, Mazzini awards the 
honor of being the first, in word and deed, 
to restore literature to its true patriotic 
mission in the person of the writer. When 
Napoleon gave Venice to Austria at 
Campo Formio, Foscolo was twenty- 
four years of age and living in Venice. 



66 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

He was immensely popular, having 
just produced a successful tragedy. By 
that cruel stroke of destiny which made 
him a foreigner in his native land, his 
whole life was embittered. He went to 
Milan, then a part of the Cis-Alpine Re- 
public, and became a soldier. Published 
in 1802 '^The Last Letters of Jacopo 
Ortis" — a novel after the manner of 
Goethe's ^Werther," full of patriotism, 
suffering and suicide. If it was not an 
epoch making book, in the sense that 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was, it produced 
a powerful effect, especially upon the 
young. In 1807 ^^ published "I Sep- 
olcri" (The Tombs) which Giudici, the 
great Sicilian critic, pronounced the sub- 
limest lyrical composition modern litera- 
ture has produced. In 1809 ^^ ^^^ given 
the Professorship of eloquence in the Uni- 
versity of Pavia, but declining to do 
homage to Napoleon, in his inaugural ad- 
dress, the chair was abolished. Mazzini 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 67 

says that Foscolo was the first to reveal 
Dante as the 'Tather of the Italian Na- 
tion, as the inspired poet, who availed 
himself of art for the civil regeneration 
of that people, speaking the language 
which he dedicated to supreme song." 

Foscolo went to London where he sup- 
ported himself by teaching and lecturing 
on Italian Literature. Those essays 
written in London, the Italians count as 
among their best critical works. Foscolo 
died there in want, ten years later. He 
said, 'Toverty would make even Homer 
abject in London." The world has not 
changed and London is not unlike other 
great towns — "Seven Grecian cities 
claimed a Homer dead, in which the liv- 
ing Homer begged for bread." The poet 
Shelley must have had Foscolo in his 
mind when he wrote, just before his death 
by drowning in the Gulf of Spezzia 
(1818), that little poem entitled "Julian 
and Maddolo," wherein he puts into the 



68 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

mouth of Maddolo, a Venetian noble- 
man, those lines so often quoted : 

"Most wretched-men are cradled into poetry by wrong — 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

Foscolo's '^Letters of Jacopo Ortis" 
surpass all his other works in eloquence 
of language and grandeur of sentiment, 
probably because they were written with 
his heart's blood. He suffered, hence he 
knew how to make others feel. Like a 
true Italian, he was fatally in love with 
his own country; they dread banishment 
more than a death sentence and seem to 
suffer more from exile than other peo- 
ples ; it has been so with all from Dante 
to Mazzini; it was so in the days of Im- 
perial Rome, when her exiles sought a 
home in the Libyan Desert. 

Literature in Italy passed through the 
same stages of development as in other 
lands, changing from classic to romantic, 
realistic or scientific. Alfieri and Fos- 
colo, the poets militant, represent the 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 69 

period of free thought and free breathing 
which came in from the North with Na- 
poleon. The restoration brought the 
school of resignation whose best ex- 
ponents were Manzoni, Grossi, Silvio 
Pellico and d'Azelio. Manzoni in his 
youth had sojourned in Paris, where he 
substituted the study of Goethe and 
Schiller, for that of Alfieri and Monti; 
whilst there he became intimate with 
Garat, Fauriel and Volney. Of course, 
he was a skeptic ; but adversity is often a 
radical cure for skepticism. He became 
a devout and austere Catholic. In 1820 
he boldly defied the unities of time and 
place in a tragedy ^^The Count of Car- 
magnola," eight years before Victor 
Hugo startled the critics of Paris by a 
similar effort with his "Cromwell." 
Both Manzoni's tragedies, 'The Count'' 
and "The Adelchi" deal with patriotic 
subjects, but the occurrences are in remote 
epochs. The author teaches an enlight- 
ened patriotism based on the principle 



70 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

that "Man was made to mourn" and must 
suffer patiently to the end. In the next 
world his wrongs will be righted. In the 
Chorus of "Carmagnola," he says: 

"To the vanquished alone comes harm never 

To tears turns the wrongdoers joy ! 

Though he 'scape through the years' long progression 

Yet the vengeance eternal o'ertaketh 

Him surely; it waiteth and waketh: 

It seizes him at the last sigh!" 

Manzoni's master-piece, however, was 
"I Promessi Sposi," a novel giving a true 
picture of Italian society in the XVIIth 
Century. Immediately after its publica- 
tion he renounced forever profane litera- 
ture and lived in retirement. As a 
writer, Manzoni exercised less influence 
over the people of his time than over the 
language itself, to which he lent great 
variety, flexibility and elegance. In i860 
he was persuaded to become a senator by 
the King of Italy and eight years later, 
when past eighty-four, he was invited to 
co-operate with the distinguished jour- 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 7 1 

nalist Ruggiero Bonghi to devise means 
to effect the unity of the Italian language 
— taking the Florentine dialect as the 
basis. He was in his 90th year when he 
died. 

Leopadi of Ricanatti was the poet of 
despair, about whom Gladstone and 
others have written much in praise. He 
was a neglected child, self taught. He 
mastered all the modern languages and 
the ancient. Niebuhr found him in Rome 
— a youth of twenty-two — the greatest 
Greek scholar in Italy. His poverty was 
abject. (Chevalier Bunsen tried to ob- 
tain an appointment for him from the 
Pope.) At eighteen he wrote two lyrics 
unsurpassed in the language since Pe- 
trarch. He remained a classicist in his 
forms, but outspoken in his demands for 
liberty. We have read his odes; they are 
inconceivably beautiful. The writer has 
never been so touched by anything except 
music — a dirge perhaps. It was like the 
wailing of a lost soul and left one's spirit, 



72 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

for a space of time, steeped in sadness. 
In one of these, ^^A Marriage Ode to his 
Sister," he wrote: "Thy sons must be 
either miserable or base. Choose that 
they be miserable." He died young and 
was several years bringing about that 
event by over-work. Toward the close 
of his life, he found the greatest of all 
blessings, after health — a friend in need. 
Count Ranieri took him to his home near 
Naples and was a brother, mother and 
Boswell to him, all in one. Even these 
favors do not seem to have warmed his 
heart to any expression of gratitude. 
Just before the pen dropped from his 
hand he wrote a canto ridiculing the 
doctrine of a future state or any responsi- 
bility connected therewith. Kingdom- 
Come must have been a surprise to him, 
for it cannot have failed to give him 
more than he asked of it. Limitations 
prevent the mention of a dozen poets and 
writers deserving notice — but we close 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 73 

with Silvio Pelico whose work ^'Le Mie 
Prigioni" had so large an influence in 
effecting the deliverance of Italy from 
Austrian rule. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 



T 



HE committee of the Fortnightly of 
Chicago that solicited the writing of this 
essay, knowing the author had seen Italy 
in transition from vassalage to a moderate 
degree of representative government, re- 
quested the writer to emphasize her own 
personal experiences. This was done, 
though the one cause without which she 
might never have seen Italy and cer- 
tainly would not at that interesting 
period, was never mentioned. 

Following the election of Abraham 
Lincoln to the United States presidency 
in November, i860, the husband of the 
writer, having an iron constitution, had 
breasted for several months the fierce 
storms of Civil War and the supreme 
peril of a divided country; then his eyes 
became so inflamed he could not use them. 
74 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 75 

He, with his family, sailed for Europe 
August 15, 1861. He went to Berlin and 
placed himself under the care of the 
famous oculist Von Graefe. 

He was a graduate of Knox College 
of Galesburg, Illinois, of the University 
of Harvard and also of the Harvard Law 
School. He had a good knowledge of 
the German language and literature. 
Chafing under the restrictions of clinic 
life and the necessity of sitting in a dark 
room one day out of every ten, he in- 
sisted on studying the Italian language. 
A class was formed and the services se- 
cured of Fabio Fabbrucci, the distin- 
guished head of the Italian Department 
in the University of Berlin. Every mem- 
ber of the class was a scholar; three of the 
pupils were inmates of the Augen Clinic 

and one, Fraulein B , was practically 

blind. It was the privilege and pleasure 
of the writer to read the lesson to two of 
these pupils till each had learned it. At 
the end of four months, the eyes of the 



76 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

patient were pronounced cured, but he 
was admonished to continue the treat- 
ment by himself for six months in a 
milder climate. 

We arrived in Venice in the Spring of 
'62 via Trieste and the Adriatic. Venice 
was then under the dominion of Austria. 
It had a population of 95,000, one half 
of whom seemed to be beggars. The gar- 
rison comprised 10,000 soldiers, mostly 
Hungarians. Austria levied conscripts 
from her Italian provinces to keep 
13,000,000 Hungarians in subjection and 
she recruited her army in Hungary to 
hold down the Venetians. The city was 
surrounded by ships, Austrian men-of- 
war, with guns ready to bombard the 
town at a moment's notice. It was a 
cruel and forbidding sight. We stayed 
there three weeks; took a conversation 
lesson every day of an elderly man, who 
chafed and fumed with rage at the men- 
tion of Austria — which occurred very 
often as he could not keep off the subject 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 77 

himself. He told us that within his rec- 
ollection 30,000 Venetians had left the 
city to seek homes in ''Italia Libera," or 
Victor Emmanuel's Italy. This senti- 
ment of hatred, which animated our 
teacher, pervaded all classes. Riding one 
day on the Grande Canal, we saw Austrian 
soldiers putting hay into a beautiful old 
church with porphyry pillars. Our gon- 
doliers gnashed their teeth in rage. 
While in Venice the Emperor and Em- 
press came and we saw them walking on 
the Molo. We followed at a respectful 
distance, but we walked alone as every 
Italian hastened away, just as the little 
lizards slink from your path, into the 
walls, anywhere out of sight. 

On arriving in Venice, the writer had 
occasion to consult a consul, and was 
told there was none. Just before leav- 
ing Venice, however, a United States con- 
sul arrived in the person of William 
Dean Howells, who seemingly was un- 
equipped with even a slender knowledge 



78 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

of the Italian language. If this were a 
fault it was quickly and ably atoned for. 
Howells' "Venetian Life," his poems 
written in Venice, especially one entitled 
"Pordinone" and an elegy on John But- 
ler Howells, are delightful reading! 
Although the writer has been in Venice 
three times since it became a part of the 
Kingdom of Italy she finds a peculiar 
fascination in reading Howells' "Vene- 
tian Life" and her three weeks' stay there 
in 1862 can be prolonged indefinitely in 
that agreeable occupation. But, when 
reading Howells' poems do not neglect 
"The Pilot's Story" ''Lest We Forget^ 
It may not have been written in Venice. 
It is an incident of the Mississippi River, 
and strongly reminds one of Mark Twain 
and Abraham Lincoln on his second trip 
to New Orleans.* 

Accredited as Mr. Howells must have 
been by the United States Government 

* See Life of Abraham Lincoln, by the Honorable Isaac 
N. Arnold in the Appendix, p. 237, 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 79 

to Venice dominated by Austria, his deli- 
cate handling of the whole situation is 
evidence of • a genius for diplomacy as 
well as for authorship. 

We went from Venice to Florence over 
the Appenines in the diligence, the 
only passengers. At Florence we found 
flowers everywhere in the greatest profu- 
sion. We arrived at a time when the 
moon was up the whole night long; 
the people were up too singing the 
whole night through. We retired at the 
usual hour, but not to sleep; every 
few minutes delightful music in the 
streets below would call us to the win- 
dow. It was enchanting! I know not 
with what to compare it! You have 
heard a bird sing in such full throated 
exuberance that the thought came to you 
that something must be the matter with it, 
just so did these Tuscans impress us. I 
said to myself — O splendid and happy 
Florence! How long have you been thus 
joyous, and how long is this to last? It 
lasted for us six weeks and there was no 



8o ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

change. The people took their gayety 
with them everywhere, even to the 
churchyard. We went one Sunday after- 
noon to the little English cemetery to see 
the new made graves of Mrs. Browning 
and Theodore Parker: returning the peo- 
ple were singing hymns, patriotic songs, 
and shouting from time to time "Ewiva 
Vittorio Emmannuelli ed abbasso il 
Papa!" Before leaving Florence Gari- 
baldi came there unannounced. There 
was a crowd following him and great en- 
thusiasm! We heard him address for 
ten minutes, the people in the Piazza del 
Duomo. The import of his address was, 
an admonition for the support of and 
loyalty to Victor Emmanuel. He was 
making similar addresses throughout 
Northern Italy and we met him again in 
Genoa. 

In 1862 there was near the entrance to 
the Duomo a trattoria (restaurant) which 
tradition says was frequented by Michael- 
angelo, and his biographer says, that sit- 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 8 1 

ting outside the trattoria and looking up 
at the great dome of the cathedral he said 

"Come de te non voglio, 
Meglio de te non passo;" 

(Like thee I would not, 
Greater than thee I cannot.) 

From Florence we went to Rome; ar- 
riving a few days before Holy week. 
Permission was obtained to hear the 
music in the Sistine chapel. There was 
one American woman besides myself. We 
sat under a little canopy. There were not 
more than fifteen women — close beside 
me sat the Empress of Austria, her sister, 
the ex-queen of Naples, and still another 
sister, not fully grown; she afterwards 
became ''La Duchesse d'Alencon," who 
lost her life in the burning of the Charity 
Bazaar in Paris. These women, all 
Bavarian princesses, were exceedingly 
beautiful. 

The eight weeks spent in Rome must 
be passed by because the Papal states con- 



82 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

tributed nothing towards the unification 
of Italy. The writer, however, cannot 
refrain from mentioning the fact that she, 
with a party, walked several miles out 
on the Apian Way to a small house which 
stood on the site where in Saint Paul's 
time stood ^The Three Taverns." Here 
it was that Saint Paul's friends came out 
to meet him, whom when he saw he 
"thanked God and took courage." The 
street was lined on both sides with monu- 
ments but not in close proximity; all had 
inscriptions — many beginning with ''Siste 
Viator" (stop traveler). A member of 
the party read them with the ease as if 
written in English. Soon after this, all 
the monuments were removed to the 
museums, to save them from the voyaging 
vandals. No one goes to see them now. 
From Rome we went to Naples where 
we arrived just in time to see the tri- 
umphal entrance of Victor Emmanuel 
into the city. He was accompanied by 
his son-in-law Prince Napoleon; they 
came in the yacht of the latter. The King 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 83 

had been there, just for a short time, two 
years before, just after Garibaldi's won- 
derful achievement. They met then on 
horseback. They clasped hands. Gari- 
baldi, his voice choked with emotion, 
said ''King of Italy"— to which the King 
simply answered ''Grazie!" (thanks). 
Then later he gratefully told the gallant 
soldier that his daring had hastened 
Italian unity by ten years. To which 
Garibaldi replied, ''But Sire, it could not 
have been done had not Victor Em- 
manuel been the most noble and generous 
of Kings." 

Although Naples had been a part of 
the Kingdom of Italy for two years the 
sight of their King set them wild with 
rejoicing. There were endless proces- 
sions and music; miles of streets festooned 
with roses. At evening in the San Carlo 
Opera House we saw and heard the 
famous tenor, Mario, in "The Dumb Girl 
of Portici." The scene of the opera is 
laid in Naples and the enthusiasm was 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 



most memorable. Grisi,* the wife of 
Mario, was in a box at the left. She was 
ten years the great tenor's senior — retired 
from the stage. Victor Emmanuel and 
Napoleon were there in a proscenium box 
at the very top of the house. The next 
day when we went to see the blue grotto, 
as we passed the Prince's yacht, we saw 
a little boat like our own, pushing off 
from the ship; it contained Victor Em- 
manuel and Napoleon on the same errand 
as our own. And we saw the grotto to- 
gether. At that time Victor Emmanuel 
was 42 years old, a little above medium 
height, florid and of a robust appearance, 
brown hair, blue eyes or gray, a bushy 
russet colored moustache turned up at the 
sides; he carried his head high, which 
gave him in the distance a proud and al- 
most defiant look. But near at hand he 
had a melancholy expression not at all in 
harmony with the striking and unforget- 
able figure he made in his pictures. 



Grisi was a very famous soprano. 



THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 85 

Homeward bound, in Genoa we again 
crossed the path of Garibaldi in an old 
church where tradition says Columbus 
was baptized. In the sacristy we were 
shown relics and a map of the world be- 
fore the discovery of America; also a 
book in which distinguished visitors had 
written. There was a couplet by Byron 
above his signature. Garibaldi, just 
ahead of us, had written '^En avant! En 
Avant! il recede qui s'arrete." ('Tor- 
ward! Forward! They recede who 
stop.") 

Italy is now a nation. The question of 
her future depends upon the solution of 
many problems; problems which con- 
front no other country or people. With- 
out entering into the realm of prophecy 
we are content to wait for some future 
Tacitus. It is, however, a hopeful sign 
that the children of Italy are taught to 
revere the memory of those patriots who 
gave them what liberty they have and 
who certainly freed them from a most de- 
grading yoke of bondage. 



CHAPTER VII 

ITALY 



T 



HE peninsula of Italy has more 
powerfully influenced the destiny of man- 
kind than any other spot on the globe. 
"Bethlehem of Judea and Greece have 
flooded the world, the one with spiritual 
life and the other with intellectual splen- 
dor." Bethlehem was the source but 
Rome and Italy the mighty rivers dis- 
tributing refreshment to countless mil- 
lions which otherwise might have 
drooped. Some historian has written 
that when Christ came into the world 
there was not a man in Rome who did not 
know the story of how Horatius held the 
bridge. Although some Niebuhr * may 



* There were two Niebuhrs. Carstens, who was a 
German traveler and writer of travels in Arabia. His 
son, George 1776-1881 wrote a history of Rome attempt- 
ing to separate tradition from authentic history. 

86 



ITALY 87 

arise to prove that Horatius never lived, 
the immortal story did live, signifying 
an ideal which the world has cherished 
and imitated for two thousand years. We 
may now do well to ponder over the 
words the historian, MacAuley, has put 
into the mouth of a heathen — 

"And how can man die better, 
Than facing fearful odds 
For the ashes of his fathers, 
And the temples of his gods?" 

Why the name Italia, a Pelqsgic word, 
beginning in a little Greek colony at the 
very toe of the boot, should have grad- 
ually extended so as to embrace the whole 
peninsula, beggars conjecture. The his- 
tory of Italy is often the record of discon- 
nected autonomous states at war with each 
other, as was the case for years with 
Venice and Genoa. At other times it is 
the distracting quarrels between great 
political parties — as the Guelfs and Ghi- 
bellines in the inland autonomous state of 



88 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Florence. In the 12th century these two 
great political parties appeared — the ad- 
herents of the Pope were called Guelfs — 
the adherents of the Emperor — Ghibel- 
lines. But these names gradually out- 
grew their original significance and came 
to express opposing tendencies; tenden- 
cies which now would be called radical 
and conservative. The Guelfs stood for 
a new Italy; feudalism blotted out; com- 
merce fostered and a leaning toward Re- 
publicanism. The Ghibellines stood for 
a protest against any changes in the old 
order of things. But what these names 
really represented, was, an unintelligent 
destructive force. They afforded banners 
under which people could enroll them- 
selves to carry on private hatreds and 
family feuds, thus enabling them to build 
up or to ruin as desire dictated. These 
long and purposeless struggles between 
Guelfs and Ghibellines were more detri- 
mental to Italy than foreign oppression. 



ITALY 89 

Political parties have had the habit of 
out-growing their original significance. 
The democratic party of the United 
States, previous to the Civil War, favored 
African slavery and the extension of ter- 
ritory North or South that would aid in 
the extension of that "peculiar institu- 
tion.'' The land which was acquired 
from Mexico for that sole purpose, 
though the purpose failed sometimes, 
gave our beloved country a very bad name 
amongst the Spanish speaking republics 
of America, especially Mexico, and we 
are suffering to-day in a vain attempt to 
set ourselves right in their opinion. 
Every state that seceded and tried to build 
up a slave-holding confederacy, was a 
democratic state. The man who assas-) /sfC 
sinated Abraham Lincoln was a demo-S -v^ 
crat. The writer has known many people | > 
who boasted they were democrats — ^with-y ^ 
out blushing. But the name at that time ' 

was a misnomer; it has since then re- 



90 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

turned to its pristine purity. The Allies 
are fighting for Democracy, and if they 
succeed in overcoming the autocratic 
dogma "that might is right" it will serve 
the world as a universal '^Declaration of 
Independence." 

From 1530 to 1796 Italy had no history 
of its own. If you would trace its dis- 
turbances, distractions and overturnings, 
you must go to the histories of France, 
Germany and Spain. For nearly three 
centuries, Italy was the battleground for 
alien armies fighting over issues with 
which it had nothing to do. Francis I 
and Charles V fought out their long bat- 
tles on Italian soil. Francis was taken 
prisoner and carried to Spain. Charles 
had full possession and Rome became the 
scene of horror, ravaged by a German 
mob: the Pope hiding in the Castle of 
St. Angelo, while the worst passions of 
a ferocious and brutal army were let loose 
upon the inhabitants; their atrocities 



ITALY 91 

rivaling in horror the sacking by the 
Goths and Vandals. 

After this there came another Medi- 
cian Pope, Clement VII, who drove 
Henry VIII of England into protestant- 
ism by his indecision over the matter of 
the divorce of Catherine of Aragon — 
whom he wished to repudiate. She was 
the aunt of Charles V, which complicated 
matters. The above is the dictum of his- 
tory. The writer, however, does not ac- 
cede to the conclusion. The aims of 
Henry VIII were certainly immoral but 
the final outcome of the affair was, on 
the whole, beneficent. The King, de- 
prived by Pope Clement VII, the privi- 
lege of repudiating Catherine, declared 
himself, aided by his parliament, to be 
the head of the church. He divorced his 
queen, and played the role of Mr. Blue- 
beard by marrying five other women in 
succession. But this was a small affair 
compared with what might have been had 
the Inquisition taken root in England. 



92 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

As it was the Island Kingdom gave to 
the world no Torquemada. 

These events concern sovereigns, pon- 
tifs and princes. The people, however, 
were most wretched. Prosperity was de- 
stroyed; towns depopulated. One event, 
however, under the pontificate of Gre- 
gory XIII in 1572, marked the reform of 
the calendar which was adopted by all 
Christendom except where the Greek 
church prevailed; so, today in Russia and 
Greece they are thirteen days behind the 
rest of Europe. When January ist comes 
in Russia and Greece, which still use the 
Julian calendar, it is January 14th in the 
rest of Christendom. 

This was the period of the religious 
wars in France, which terminated when 
Henry IV was received into the church 
by Clement VIII. This same pontif is 
remembered for his burning, for alleged 
heresy, of Giodano Bruno; the most 
learned and distinguished scholar of his 
age; and also with the torture and death 



ITALY 93 

of Beatrici Cenci for the crime of parri- 
cide — a punishment which although per- 
haps deserved, the crime was never 
proven. 

The attempts of Genoa to establish a 
republic under Andrew Doria, a son of 
one of her ancient families in 1528, was 
not unsuccessful, for it continued in force 
till the French revolution. Of just such 
disconnected fragments as these does the 
history of this period consist. Nothing 
that happens seems connected with what 
precedes or succeeds it, — to chronicle 
even great events is much like trying to 
photograph a Kaleidoscope. 

The Duchy of Savoy remote and un- 
observed, continued to flourish. Her 
rulers, by a shrewd policy and ambitious 
marriages were becoming a power. Vic- 
tor Amadius I, who married the daughter 
of Henry IV, is remembered by the al- 
most total extinction of that religious 
sect called the Waldenses — a sort of 
protestantism; so named from its founder, 



94 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

one Peter Waldo. To escape persecution 
these people had hidden under the 
shadow of the Alps in Savoy and Pied- 
mont, where unobserved they had bujjt 
their villages and worshipped unmo- 
lested. After the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes, Victor Amadius was ordered 
by Louis XIV to compel his Waldensean 
subjects to become Catholics; so, be- 
tween the armies of France and Savoy 
this picturesque and defenceless people 
were awakened from their dream, and 
almost annihilated. In this age of ab- 
solutism the game of shuttelcock was 
played in Italy — cities were tossed with- 
out ceasing, from one to another. Nice 
was torn by Louis XIV from Savoy, thus 
changing masters for the eighth time in 
a period of less than two hundred years. 
Italy, as a nation, did not yet exist; she 
was therefore more interested in a throne 
in Spain than in events amongst the peo- 
pie about her who spoke the Italian lan- 
guage. 



ITALY 95 

The Treaty of Utrecht in 17 13 again 
upset the established boundaries of Italy. 
Spain had to give up Naples which, with 
Milan and the Island of Sardinia was as- 
signed to the disappointed Emperor of 
Germany. The Duke of Savoy had 
joined the Grand Alliance against Louis 
XIV in the day of his decline. He had 
earned a reward; so, a valuable strip of 
territory lying between Milan and Genoa 
fell to him and also the Island of Sicily 
with the title of King of Sicily. Later, in 
1720 he was induced to exchange this 
with the German Emperor for Sardinia, 
the regal title being changed to King of 
Sardinia. This is mainly interesting as 
showing the steps by which the duke of 
little Savoy became King of Sardinia and 
finally in the person of Victor Emmanuel 
II, King of United Italy. The reign of 
Victor Emmanuel began in deep sadness. 
His army was demoralized by a galling 
defeat. His father was dying of a broken 
heart in Portugal. The extreme reac- 



96 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

tionists were denouncing the liberal ten- 
dencies which they claimed had caused 
the ruin of the state. At Turin, his capi- 
tal, there was no enthusiasm, nothing but 
frigid coldness. It needed great ability 
and no little address to unite these oppos- 
ing factions and reconcile them to the 
humiliating terms he had been obliged 
to accept — 20,000 Austrians quartered in 
Piedmont and a heavy indemnity to be 
paid. He became grave and abstracted; 
and an expression of deep sadness became 
habitual and never left him. 

It was during the reign of a Spanish 
King, Charles III, son of Philip V, over 
Naples in 1738 that the cities of Hercu- 
lanium and Pompeii were uncovered 
after being hidden seventeen hundred 
years. 

One seemingly unimportant exchange 
of territory at this time profoundly af- 
fected the future of Europe. The Island 
of Corsica belonged to Genoa and had 
for generations been struggling to free 



ITALY 97 

itself from the hatred tyranny. The ex- 
piring republic being in desperate need 
of money sold her troublesome depend- 
ency to France; and so the great Corsi- 
can, Napoleon Bonaparte, instead of be- 
ing born an Italian — as he would have 
been, or a German or a Spaniard as he 
might have been, was a Frenchman! 

Across the Atlantic a mere handful of 
people, because of the infringements of 
their rights and liberties, which in Italy 
or France would have seemed small and 
trivial, had measured their strength with 
England; had thrown off the yoke of 
bondage and joined the nations of the 
earth as a free and independent people. 
This was an object lesson which made 
despots tremble. The name of George 
Washington became known to the most 
illiterate in Europe. The air was vibrat- 
ing with the word Liberty. It is the 
characteristic of genius to turn obstacles 
into opportunities. Napoleon had that 
genius and the note he struck was ^'free- 



98 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

dom for oppressed peoples." France 
and Italy answered that description. 
With an unpaid and an unclothed army 
he swept down upon the plains of Lom- 
bardy and in ten months he was master 
of all Italy. What an opportunity was 
here for this man in whose veins there 
flowed only Italian blood, — to accom- 
plish the dream of centuries — the uni- 
fication of Italy! But, intoxicated by the 
novelty of unlimited power — goaded by 
colossal ambition, he failed. Italy had to 
wait a half century for other hands with 
purer hearts to set her free and Napoleon 
had to expiate his crimes in exile on a 
lonely desert island. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RENAISSANCE 



T 



HE great intellectual awakening in 
Europe following closely on the last of 
the eight crusades — which ended in 1270 
— the Italians named the risorgimento 
and the French, the renaissance. It was 
the legitimate offspring of the long con- 
tinued effort to rescue the holy sepulcher 
from Mohammedan rule. Hardy adven- 
turers, earnest christian souls, and great 
scholars, thrown together in intimate re- 
lations, all actuated by one common aim, 
compared their knowledge and accom- 
plishments; this created enthusiasm, in- 
spiration and competition. The first 
great result of this movement in Italy 
was achieved by Dante who immortalized 
99 



lOO ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

himself and the age in which he lived by 
the Divine Comedy.* The force and 
spirit of this awakening in Italy was in 
some degree and for a time, limited to 
painting and architecture; painting was 
busy in illustrating Biblical history — the 
Scriptures — and architecture was mostly 
confined to building churches. The 
talent and genius of several millions of 
people converged on these two subjects. 
Every youth who had brains was appren- 
ticed to some great painter or architect; 
sometimes to both in succession. The 
result was Titian, Correggio, Andrea del 
Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and 
Michael Angelo — after him there could 
be nothing greater. 



* In the light of the twentieth century it seems strange 
that Dante was a ghibelline — an out and out imperialist. 
Whilst absent in Rome on private business, the Guelfs got 
the ascendency, confiscated his property and banished him 
to Ravenna — a place, for an able pedestrian, only a walk- 
ing distance from Florence — ^but he was threatened with 
the pleasant alternative of being burnt alive if he re- 
turned. So, robbed of fortune, and with no weapon but his 
pen, he made effective use of it in dealing with his 
enemies. 



THE RENAISSANCE 10 1 



In Spain and Portugal the force of the 
renaissance spent itself on explorations. 
In England, however, on the other hand, 
the movement confined itself to literature 
and scholarship. Englishmen flocked to 
Italy to study the humanists, the result 
of which was to make the era of Eliza- 
beth, the golden age of English literature. 
The impulse finally converged on dra- 
matic poetry. For a century and a half 
people wrote mediocre poetry who might 
have excelled in writing something else. 
Marlow, Bacon, Ben Jonson and Milton 
were all inspired by the renaissance 
spirit; but Shakespeare was the apex of 
dramatic endeavor! He was not only the 
playright but an actor and theater man- 
ager, and at one time the owner of a 
theater. He was not only responsible for 
the performance as a whole, but for each 
role of the numerous dramatis personae. 
In his time the theater was not the hon- 
ored institution it is today, though it was 
the favorite recreation of the learned and 



I02 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

great. The various roles were played by 
men and boys. How natural and prob- 
able it must have been when if by chance 
Shakespeare made a slip as to fact or 
fancy in any line of the play, to have 
these learned men meeting him soon after 
call his attention to it. He, of course, 
corrected the error. He thus became the 
pupil of the learned of London — and an 
apt scholar he must have been. He seems 
to have had a knowledge of the classics 
as well as of modern languages — years of 
this schooling earned for him the phrase 
applied to him by the poet, Coleridge, 
two centuries later "Our myriad minded 
Shakespeare." "What is the secret of 
your life?" asked Mrs. Browning of 
Charles Kingsley, the novelist, "tell me 
that I may make mine beautiful too." He 
replied, "I had a friend" — we know that 
Dante had a Beatrice, Petrarch a Laura, 
the great, pure soul of Michael Angelo 
found solace and relief from his distract- 
ingly laborious life in the friendship of 



THE RENAISSANCE IO3 

Vittoria Colonna. Whether Shakespeare 
had a similar source of inspiration we 
shall never know, but judging from the 
women his imagination created, if he had, 
it must have been some divinity, for he 
ennobled and glorified everything he 
touched — even where hampered by his- 
torical facts. To the Lady Macbeth he 
gave an awakening conscience. After 
vainly trying to wash out the "damned 
spot," we are moved almost to tears by 
the pathos of her plaintive wail ''AH the 
perfumes of Arabia can never sweeten 
this little hand!" And Shakespeare took 
the most infamous woman of ancient 
times — judging by present day standards 
— Cleopatra. History and her pictures 
show she was not beautiful, but, she had 
that strange, invisible something we call 
magnetism * — ^when we have read the 

* It is known that a bit of iron or steel can be con- 
verted into a magnet that wil! attract its kind, by a 
simple process of winding about it copper wire and sub- 
jecting it to an electric current from a battery. Shall we 
ever know more than we do about animal magnetism? 



I04 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

drama of Anthony and Cleopatra we are 
chagrined by the bald and pitiless exposi- 
tion of the weakness of human nature ; 
we close the book and can recall one sin- 
gle phrase which may be the solution of 
the conundrum ^^Age cannot wither nor 
custom stale her infinite variety." There 
is no proof that Shakespeare superin- 
tended the printing of any of his plays — 
although sixteen came separately from 
the press in small quarto volumes during 
his lifetime, many, if not all of these were 
published without the consent or super- 
vision of the author, from copies often 
surreptitiously obtained from the play 
house. At the time of Shakespeare's 
death in 1616, no less than twenty-one 
plays remained in manuscript. It was 
not until 1623 that Shakespeare's actor 
friends, John Hemming and Henry Con- 
dell, brought together the previously 
printed and unprinted dramas of which 
they knew him to be the author, and pub- 
lished them in a folio volume, ^'in order,'' 



THE RENAISSANCE IO5 

as they wrote, "to keep the memory of 
so worthy a friend and fellow alive." 
Thirty-six plays were thus claimed for 
Shakespeare — the thirty-seventh — Per- 
icles, had been printed separately in 1609 
and was added to the list later. Follow- 
ing this edition of 1623, issued by his 
actor friends, there appeared another edi- 
tion, in which the poet Milton,* then a 
youth of about 20, wrote a preface which 
was a eulogy, biography, epitaph and 
sonnet all in one. 

**What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones 

The labor of an age in piled stones? 

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid 

Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? 

Dear son of memory; great heir of fame, 

What needst thou such weak witness of thy name? 

Thou, in our wonder and astonishment 

Hast built thyself a live-long monument, 

For whilst to the shame of slow endeavoring art 

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, 



* Milton was 8 years old at Shakespeare's death in 
1616. 



I06 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving 
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving 
And so sepulchered in such pomp doth lie, 
That Kings for such a tomb would wish to die." 

A critic and writer * has reckoned that 
Shakespeare commanded a vocabulary of 
15,000 words, almost double that used 
by the poet Milton or the novelist 
Thackeray. 

The writer has three theories in ex- 
planation of the achievement in dramatic 
composition of this transcendent genius. 
The first she has already hinted at, with- 
out much amplification. He was, in 
common with us all, "the heir of all the 
ages" and also the favored pupil of the 
learned and great of his time — the golden 
age of English literature. Do the annals 
of dramatic production chronicle any- 
thing similar to his experience and oppor- 
tunity to write, experiment, change and 
improve under the suggestion and advice 



* George P. Marsh, the well known authority on 
language; this is, however, but intelligent guessing. 



THE RENAISSANCE IO7 

of an admiring public? Another theory 
is, that art arose in him spontaneously; 
that he created his ideals by the pure in- 
stinctive force of genius. The third 
theory is, that he was inspired as was 
Joan of Arc. Mark Twain says in his 
life of this Domremy maiden, it is the 
only biography in existence where the 
main facts are substantiated by witnesses 
who were formally subpoenaed and testi- 
fied under oath. She could not read, yet 
she dictated state papers, using appro- 
priate language, non-existent in her 
maidenly vocabulary. In her trial when 
questioned by her enemies in order to 
trap her, her replies indicate the pre- 
science of the Deity, and recall Christ's 
replies made under similar circumstances. 
His enemies asked "Is it lawful for us 
to give tribute unto Caesar, or no" — his 
reply "Show me a penny. Whose image 
and superscription hath it?" They an- 
swered and said "Caesar's." And he said 
unto them, "Render therefore unto Cae- 



I08 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

sar the things which be Caesar's and to 
God the things which be God's." My 
three theories do not necessarily conflict 
— they can be harnessed as a troika * or 
as a two-span. 

The writer has read Frank Harris' 
book entitled "The Women of Shake- 
speare." He seems to have no doubt as 
to the sources of Shakespeare's inspira- 
tion; according to him they were his 
mother, his wife, his mistress, a court lady 
who had two husbands in succession and 
a daughter. With infinite pains he has 
listed most of the women named by 
Shakespeare and has mapped out the con- 
trolling agency amongst these inspiring 
mediums. His achievement suggests 
psychometric ability. There are those 
who believe that inanimate objects record 
every act, every condition, every circum- 
stance which transpires in its vicinity. 
For example, a murder committed within 

* Troika is the Russian word for three horses har- 
nessed abreast. 



THE RENAISSANCE 



109 



the four walls of a room— the plastering 
records the deed, and the psychometrist 
can read it. Handwriting seems pecu- 
liarly adapted to this form of psychic 
experiment. Harris seems to have read 
the very soul of Shakespeare ; he tells us 
his thoughts and feelings from his lines. 
The writer had an acquaintance, a highly 
educated person, who believed that 
Shakespeare was an ignorant country 
bumpkin and that Bacon wrote the 
dramas which bear Shakespeare's name. 
The Bacon theory is worthy of no con- 
sideration whatever! — but in contemplat- 
ing the Harris theory my mind is stalled 
— the load is too great. Unfortunately I 
shall not live long enough to investigate 
the matter. It is as if some one said to 
me you can never eat chicken except you 
catch the bird, kill it, pluck the feathers 
and cook it yourself. So, I am condemned 
to read my Shakespeare in my own ig- 
norant fashion as heretofore — get out of 
it what I can which is all I shall need. 



no ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

The nations or peoples contiguous to 
Italy have tapped her intellectual re- 
sources and drawn upon them without 
stint. The German speaking peoples of 
Germany and Austria were tardy in per- 
fecting the German language and de- 
veloping its literature, but they led off 
triumphantly in musical composition and 
gave the world Bach, Beethoven and 
Wagner.* There are those who believe 
and maintain that the composition of the 
music of a Grand Opera is the greatest 



* Professor Camillo von Klanze, in a preface to a book 
on German poetry, wrote, "Unlike English literature, 
German literature was not allowed to develop contin- 
uously; after periods of brilliancy we find decay and 
complete dearth." 

"The terrible religious wars which raged from the 
middle of the XVI century to the middle of the XVII 
century — notably the 30 years' war — sapped the very 
marrow of the people. National life almost disappeared 
and Germany became dependent on France for her cul- 
ture." 

Most writers on the history of German literature have 
given little emphasis to the lack of a guiding, inspiring 
national impulse; had such existed Goethe would hardly 
have felt flattered by being decorated with the "Grand 
Cross of the Legion of Honor" by Napoleon. 



THE RENAISSANCE 1 1 1 

achievement of the human mind. But 
the writer does not think it can measure 
up to the work of a Shakespeare or a 
Michelangelo. But that is shooting on 
the wing. 

We have to admit the Germans are a 
great people; the earliest records of them 
speak of homely domestic virtues sur- 
passing those of their neighbors. The 
novelty of being at last an undivided 
country rendered them susceptible to 
adroit flattery. Ambitious, designing 
war-lords, comprising the greatest minds 
of the empire, headed by the Kaiser,* 
invented a propaganda which when car- 
ried out ^'isolated the people from the 
morality of civilization, converted them 
into lawless pirates, ruthless buccaneers." 
The nation became afflicted with a new 
and fashionable disease — autointoxication 



* The masses were hoodwinked. The Kaiser often 
addressed his army and always told them they were 
fighting to defend the Fatherland. This was a crime, 
though it changed into a prophecy later. 



112 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

— in which the balance between assimila- 
tion and elimination was lost. The germ 
at the center, however, is sound and the 
nation must recover. There must be a 
nucleus of virtue which will re-light the 
torch of honour and glory, and enable 
them to re-enact their noblest history and 
traditions. The Teutons are today the 
linguists of the world: if you travel to 
remote and out of the way places you will, 
most likely, find your hotel-keeper a Ger- 
man who speaks your own tongue and 
that of several others — in this we can 
imitate them with profit. 



CHAPTER IX 

ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

W HEN you visit Rome you are 
shown the house where Goethe spent the 
winter; his subsequent writings show the 
effect of that visit: whether the writings 
of Victor Hugo were similarly affected is 
a question. He certainly did produce a 
work, his '^Cromwell," eight years after 
Manzoni had defied the unities of time 
and place in a similar tragedy ''The 
Count of Carmagnola.'' Notwithstand- 
ing Victor Hugo's frequent inaccuracies 
the writer experiences more pleasure in 
reading Victor Hugo's works than almost 
any other author of the 19th century.* 



* The writer herein makes an humble apology to the 
shade of Victor Hugo. She mentioned his frequent in- 
accuracies which was an injustice, since many of his 
greatest works were written in exile where he had no 
access to reference libraries. 

113 



114 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

The writer, returning to America from 
Europe, was in Paris in August, 1862, 
when Les Miserables made its iirst ap- 
pearance. Napoleon III was at the 
height of his power — Hugo was in exile 
at Hauteville House on the Island of 
Guernsey — the French people had a sin- 
gular way of showing their appreciation 
of Hugo. The book was not advertised 
to our knowledge, but, suddenly we saw 
a copy of the book, wide open in a big 
show window of some great establish- 
ment — very soon there were more in 
other windows; they kept on increasing 
till at last they seemed to be everywhere, 
even in small, out of the way streets and 
in obscure windows. We purchased a 
copy and read it on the sea voyage home- 
ward. It was almost finished, when, en- 
tering New York harbor it was stolen 
from our steamer chairs. This was vexa- 
tious, but fortunately we spent the win- 
ter in Washington, D. C, and in the 
following January (1863), the English 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA II 5 

actor, Vandenhoff, arrived in Washing- 
ton, gave readings in the Senate chamber 
from Les Miserables and we were thus 
enabled to finish the work by proxy, as it 
were. He read his own translation. 

Above all things else, the writer 
wishes to be just. Previous to the declara- 
tion of war in 1914 by the ex-Kaiser, she 
had the greatest admiration for many of 
the achievements of the English people, 
but she loved the German people. Na- 
tions, like individuals, commit offenses; 
they do things they know to be wrong, 
impelled by one cause or another. King 
John — Lackland — a most unworthy in- 
strument of good, was forced by the 
barons of England to sign the Magna 
Charta, which has been termed the 
"Cornerstone of popular liberty" — for 
this alone the world owes England a 
great debt. On the other hand the Eng- 
lish government has been guilty of many 
acts of injustice, especially v/here her sub- 



Il6 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

jects were profiting financially, as in the 
slave trade when we were a colony of 
England, and later the opium traffic with 
China. When friends tell us our faults 
we take no heed — but if an enemy use the 
same words we are pricked to reform. 
The perfidy of Germany as practiced dur- 
ing the last four years has given the 
writer great pain and has been felt as a 
personal grievance, causing a wound 
which it will require years to heal. She 
does not wish to become an Anglomaniac, 
neither a hater of the Teutons. She is 
willing and waiting to forgive and forget; 
in such manner that when at last she ren- 
ders her own account the recording Angel 
may write she was not unforgiving. But 
the question arises. Have the Germans 
repented? This recalls a phrase used by 
John A. Logan in a public speech, ^'To 
forgive the wrongdoer before repentance 
makes more than it reforms criminals. '^ 



CHAPTER X 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

"The Austrians are really the greatest brutes that ever 
called themselves by the undeserved name of civilized 
men." — Lord Palmerston. 



"A 



USTRIA - HUNGARY * is in 
many ways the most aristocratic state in 
Europe. There is a semblance of popular 
government, but the Emperor and aris- 
tocracy rule. The electoral system is very 
confused, so as to keep down the warring 
nationalities which comprise the Empire. 

* The writer has many dear friends, both here and in 
Europe, who are Austrians. The sweeping condemnatory 
statement of Lord Palmerston, which is at the head of this 
chapter, was made when he was the premier of England 
and knew that there were 20,000 Italian patriots lan- 
guishing in subterranean dungeons in the largest city of 
Southern Italy, then dominated by Austria. Thus it is 
that a whole nation is blamed and made to suffer for 
the guilty acts of a few people in power. 

117 



Il8 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

The Senate, or the upper house, like the 
Bundesrath in Germany, is composed of 
princes of the blood, archbishops and 
bishops, the heads of noble land owning 
families and members appointed for life. 
The great estate owners also enjoy privi- 
leged places in the Lower House, as do 
representatives of Chambers of Com- 
merce. There is only such freedom of 
speech, of the press and assemblage, as 
the bureaucracy permits. The warfare 
of a score of different nationalities is the 
controlling issue in domestic politics, and 
the expansion of the empire into the Bal- 
kans, the impelling motive of foreign af- 
fairs." 

"The old feudal aristocracy rules in its 
own interest. It fills the higher positions 
in the court circles — it officers the army 
— it controls the foreign office — its mem- 
bers foRm the diplomatic corps. Cast is 
writ large in the country, and except in 
Hungary and Bohemia there is little 
democratic spirit outside the socialist 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 1 1 9 

groups. The rule of the house of Haps- 
burg and the church has crushed the na- 
tion and left it a prey to the privileged 
classes." 

The population of Austria in 191 2 was 
over 28,000,000. About one-third speak 
the German language and they possess 
much of the country's v^ealth and cul- 
ture. In Bohemia, however, the Ger- 
mans are outnumbered by the Czechs 
who are the most progressive of the 
Slavonic peoples in Austria. There are 
10,000,000 Magyars — 4,000,000 Poles — 
3,000,000 Ruthenians — the Slovaks num- 
ber about 8,000,000 — 700,000 Italians. 

The military violence of Austria 
against Italy began in 1746. The Em- 
peror Charles VI of Austria violated the 
Salic law, publishing an ordinance giv- 
ing pragmatic sanction to his appointing 
his daughter, Maria Theresa, heir to his 
throne. This led to war — the contestants 
dividing the European powers. Maria 
Theresa fled to Hungary which gallantly 



I20 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

espoused her cause. Finally the victory 
was given to the Allies of Maria Theresa. 
The Austrians, made bold by their suc- 
cess near Piacenza, made war upon 
Genoa to punish it for having taken the 
part of the enemy. The drunken Aus- 
trian troops committed unheard of 
crimes and demanded an indemnity of 
21,000,000 lire. These persecutions lasted 
three months and finally ended in a 
fierce five-day battle, after which the 
enemy retired. 

After Napoleon was conquered at 
Waterloo (1815), the monarchs of Eu- 
rope dictated the Congress of Vienna. 
Italy was dismembered and repartitioned. 
Austria demanded and received the lion's 
share. The Kingdom of Sardinia, Pied- 
mont and Liguria fell to Victor Emman- 
uel I of Savoy. The Kingdom of the two 
Sicilies to Ferdinand I of Bourbon. The 
Roman State to the Pope. The Repub- 
lic of San Marino, under the protection 
and rule of the Pope. The island of 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 121 

Malta to England. Corsica was left to 
France. 

Under the rugged but kindly mountain 
regions of Calabria and the Abruzzi 
there had been for some time a secret 
society, the Carbonari, composed of the 
ablest men and women of those parts, 
whose purpose was the liberation of Italy. 
One day before the Congress of Vienna 
they numbered about 800,000. A few 
days after the Congress they comprised 
double that number. 

In 1820 a revolution burst out in the 
Kingdom of the two Sicilies. The lead- 
ers of the Carbonari appeared at the royal 
palace and boldly demanded a constitu- 
tion. The revolutionists were encouraged 
and incited to rise up against their op- 
pressors by the poet, Gabriel Rossetti * 
(born in Vasto Abruzzi). The throne 
of Ferdinand of Bourbon was tottering 



* Gabriel Rossetti was the father of Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti, the celebrated English poet and painter and 
founder of the pre-Raphaelite school. 



122 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

when an Austrian army appeared and re- 
consigned the scepter of despotism to 
Ferdinand I. One year later in 1821 an 
insurrection arose in Piedmont which was 
started by the students of the University 
of Turin. There were also uprisings in 
the duchies of Modena and Reggio; but 
the revolutionists were unarmed and 
without ammunition. These uprisings 
were followed by prosecutions, condem- 
nations and executions. But from these 
futile yet sacred revolutionary ruins 
there arose a leader, powerful, austere, 
earnest, indomitable — Giuseppi Mazzini, 
who in Marseilles, 183 1, founded the 
Journal Giovanni Italia (Young Italy), 
an organ that was destined to educate the 
masses to a sense of the true value of all 
forms of self-government, and to count 
among its adherents later, philosophers, 
poets, scholars, jurists, economists, states- 
men and heroes. 

In 1846 the dreary pontificate of 
Gregory XVI had come to an end; it had 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 123 

been characterized by devotion to the 
Hapsburg rule. Mazzini was in Eng- 
land — Garibaldi was in South America, 
each, with a price set upon his head, and 
who should succeed this pontif was a 
burning question. It is a singular fact 
that Austria still holds the power of veto 
in the conclave, by virtue of her headship 
in the ^'Holy Roman Empire." The 
choice fell upon Cardinal Feretti; so un- 
expectedly to him — that it was said, when 
the result became certain he exclaimed 
"Gentlemen, what have you done?" and 
then fainted. He was known to be 
liberal. The joy of the patriots was un- 
bounded, and only equalled by the con- 
sternation of Austria. The Ambassador, 
hastening from Vienna with the Em- 
peror's veto, arrived too late, Pius IX 
was in the chair of Saint Peter and had 
commenced his pontificate. He began 
his reign by pardoning all condemned 
political prisoners. He named Cardinal 
Gizzi, a liberal, as secretary of state. He 



124 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

mitigated the vigor of the censorship of 
the press; instituted the office of state 
council in which each province had two 
representatives; permitted the formation 
of civic guards; and cried aloud from the 
Vatican ''God Bless Italy!" Prince Met- 
ternich, premier of Austria, was heard to 
mutter, 'We had reason to expect any 
evil except that of a liberal Pope." 

Poland had been effaced in her de- 
spairing effort to maintain independence. 
Her territory with its 15,000,000 inhabi- 
tants had been divided between Russia, 
Austria and Prussia. Polish exiles were 
scattering seeds of rebellion wherever 
there were souls thirsting for freedom. 
The soil of Italy was ready for such seed, 
the people pining for the harvest. Pa- 
triots had grown bold in Hungary and 
Italy was catching the contagion. Maz- 
zini and Garibaldi were watching from 
afar, ready to return and join in the 
rescue. Just then news came of the fall 
of the monarchy and establishment of a 
republic in France. This sent a thrill of 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 125 

joy to patriots throughout Europe, and 
immediately following this came word of 
an insurrection in Vienna and the expul- 
sion of Prince Metternich. The time has 
come, they said, to make a strike for lib- 
erty. Charles Albert whose sympathies 
were with the people, with his two sons, 
the dukes of Savoy and Genoa * entered 
into the struggle with Austria for the 
freedom of the Lombard, Venetian King- 
dom. Patriotism was contagious, Tus- 
cany, Rome and even Naples sent troops 
to defend the Lombard brothers but they 
had no great military leader and there 
came the defeat at Custozga and the re- 
treat to Milan. Pope Pius IX had not 
yet given his sanction to the movement, 
although none doubted that he would. 
Great was the consternation when he is- 
sued an encyclical April, 1848, saying he 



* One year before the Crimean war the duke of 
Genoa, brother of Victor Emmanuel II, visited England. 
Queen Victoria graciously presented him with a horse, 
saying, "I hope you will ride this in fighting the battles 
for the liberation of Italv." 



126 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

could take no part in a contest against 
Austria: that was a death blow to the 
cause. The excitement in Rome was in- 
tense. The Pope's minister, Pelligrino 
Rossi was assassinated. Pius IX fled in 
disguise, under the cover of darkness to 
Gaita, a fortified city near Naples. 

Charles Albert one year later resolved 
to make one more effort to expel the Aus- 
trians from Lombardy. He met a crush- 
ing defeat at Novara, March, 1849. The 
Austrians pursued the retreating army 
into Piedmont. Charles Albert, unable 
to endure the humiliation and disappoint- 
ment, abdicated before he left the battle- 
field in favor of his son, Victor Em- 
manuel, leaving to younger and stronger 
shoulders the burden too heavy for him. 
This youth of 29, undaunted by defeat 
and his father's despair, with set face, 
looking out on the gloomy battle-field, 
uttered the words he was going to make 
true after 21 years of unceasing effort, 
"And yet Italy shall be." 

The archives of Milan contain ac- 



AUSTRIA- HUNGARY 127 

counts of incredible atrocities committed 
by the Austrians during the suppression 
of revolutions in Italy. Old men, women 
and children were burnt alive, but as we 
have been compelled to read so much of 
similar barbarisms in following the con- 
duct of the war, the writer will spare the 
reader.* Austria was jubilant. Her able 
Field Marshal Radetzky had com- 
manded the army at Custozza and No- 
vara. Fame enough for one man! 
Austria t sent General Haynau to teach 
the people of Lombardy subserviency to 
Austria. The details of his atrocities 
combined with similar acts in Hungary 
so horrified the people of England that 
on a subsequent visit there he was set 
upon by a mob in London and pummeled 
thoroughly till rescued by the police. 



*The news has just come that Bulgaria, Turkey, 
Austria and Germany have surrendered unconditionally. 

t In October, 1848, the new young King Francis Joseph 
had just ascended the throne. There had been a revolu- 
tion in Hungary incited by Polish exiles and General 
Haynau had been sent there to teach the Hungarians 
loyalty to Austria. 



CHAPTER XI 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

T this dark hour in Italy and when 
abandoned by the Pope a temporary gov- 
ernment was formed in Rome for the 
conduct of the war with Austria: Maz- 
zini and Garibaldi aiding in its organi- 
zation. The abolition of the Inquisition 
was its first measure. As the emaciated 
victims were borne out into the blinding 
sunlight, a great cry arose, Down with 
the Pope! Long live the republic. A 
triumvirate was elected by the assembly 
composed of Mazzini, Armellini and 
Saffi. The Roman Republic with high 
hopes appealed to England and France 
to sustain it. The Republic of France, 
after electing Louis Napoleon as presi- 
dent, had suddenly by a coup d'etat be- 
come an empire. Louis Napoleon sent 
8,000 men to Civita Vecchia not to sus- 
128 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 129 

tain the republic but to effect a recon- 
ciliation with the Pope : it soon developed 
that the French soldiers were in Rome 
not as rescuers but as enemies. And when 
news reached Gaita that General Oudi- 
not had attacked Rome there was great 
rejoicing. The popular indignation in 
France against Louis Napoleon was so 
great that he was constrained to send M. 
de Lesseppes to patch up a peace which 
would be acceptable to the Pope, General 
Oudinot, to the Republic and to the 
French Assembly. The effort failed, 
Oudinot being determined to re-instate 
the Pope without conditions. 

Pope Pius IX has been blamed by his- 
torians for the part he played in calling 
an outside army of imperialists in to 
coerce a small band of patriots back into 
servitude to Austria. Garibaldi with 
19,000 men, with splendid valor defended 
the city for four weeks against 35,000 
trained veterans. On July 3rd, 1849, this 
brave leader was hastily summoned be- 



I30 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

fore the Assembly. In reply to their 
questions he was obliged to admit that 
the defense could no longer be continued. 
The Assembly ordered a surrender; then 
with stately gravity, as if it were a dying 
bequest, they conferred Roman citizen- 
ship upon all who had aided in the de- 
fense of the Republic. After this they 
calmly waited at their posts till they 
should be driven out by French bayonets. 
Then, just before the entrance of the 
French army Garibaldi assembled his 
soldiers and dramatically invited who- 
ever would to follow him to the end. He 
said, "I have only danger and hunger to 
offer you; the earth for a bed and the 
sun for a fire: let whosoever does not 
despair of the fortunes of Italy follow 
me!" Of the three or four thousand pa- 
triots who accepted these stern conditions 
and passed out of the gates of Rome that 
night only a small handful survived to 
witness Italian independence, eleven 
years later. Proclaimed as outlaws, most 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY I3I 

of them were captured and shot before 
they reached Piedmont. 

Garibaldi's faithful and adored Anita 
whom he had married in South America, 
and who insisted on sharing his hard- 
ships, died from exhaustion by the way. 

GARIBALDI AND ANITA, 1 849 

After the fall of the Roman Republic 
Garibaldi with fifteen hundred of his 
faithful followers, led the way to the little 
republic of San Marino and there se- 
cured an armistice with the enemy in 
which he demanded and obtained the 
right to send his companions undisturbed 
to their homes; he personally would not 
bind himself to any pact with the Aus- 
trians. He preferred to keep the road 
to which fate had predestined him. 
There were hundreds more daring and 
faithful who wished to follow him at any 
cost. The hero as gentle as he was in- 
vincible, could not refuse them. He ac- 
cepted their offer and with them 



132 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

attempted to escape by way of the sea. 
The fragile boat containing this sacred 
handful was soon overtaken by the Aus- 
trians. Garibaldi with his courageous 
Anita jumped into the water, and being 
practiced swimmers, were not long in 
reaching the shore. Ugo Bassi, the Barn- 
abite preacher with many other Gari- 
baldians were captured and executed. On 
August 4th, 1849 — it was sunset — a little 
vehicle with one horse driven by the 
Garibaldian Captain Leggero crept 
slowly up the road which led from the 
sea to the woods of Ravenna. In this 
rough cart was a young woman sick with 
a fever. ^^Have courage!" said Gari- 
baldi, who was dressed as a farmer and 
was sitting near the woman, caressing her 
forehead and holding above her head an 
open umbrella to prevent the burning 
rays of the sun from scorching her. 
"Courage my good Anita, in that house 
yonder we will ask aid." "O, Giuseppi, 
I am dying!" murmured the invalid, 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 1 33 

while foam covered her burning lips. 
The hero wiped her mouth with a silk 
handkerchief — a black cloud closed over 
his soul. They finally reached the vicin- 
ity of the house. A farm hand looked 
with surprise at the strange company. 
"In the name of humanity,'" cried Gari- 
baldi supplicatingly, "save this woman! 
I ask nothing for myself, everything for 
her. Give us a glass of water. Let us 
rest a moment." "I am not the master 
here," responded the rustic, "but I will 
call my master Ravaglia." A woman 
servant came out of the house. She, see- 
ing that Anita was struck with death, was 
overcome with emotion and exclaimed 
"Poor creature! To travel in such a con- 
dition! It is fortunate that we have a 
physician here." Dr. Naldini came, 
looked anxiously at the invalid, and said 
sententiously "This woman is dying," 
then looking fixedly at Garibaldi, con- 
tinued, "and you with that face, with that 
beard, you are Garibaldi." "Silence, for 



134 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

pity's sake!" softly interrupted the hero, 
"you know well that I am hunted to the 
death, and all the others who assist me 
are punished." "Don't, don't reveal my 
name!" At that moment Stefifano Rava- 
glia, the master of the house, joined them. 
He told them to take Anita into the upper 
chamber where there was a poor little 
bed. With the greatest tenderness the 
Hero took the little creature in his power- 
ful armiS and began slowly ascending the 
stairs. But after a few steps Anita's 
beautiful head fell back and she said 
feebly — "Giuseppi — the children — " and 
she was dead. The Hero replaced the 
adored figure on the ground; he touched 
it, he bathed it with tears ; he covered it 
with kisses. He called her by the 
sweetest and most sacred names ; he cried 
desperately: "No, no! she is not dead! 
Take her upstairs, it is a fainting spell. 
She has suffered so much, poor little 
creature! She will revive; she is strong. 
She is not dead. I say it is impossible. 



AUSTRIA- HUNGARY 135 

If it were true I too would be dead be- 
cause our lives have always been as one. 
Look at me, Anita — open your eyes — 
move your lips — speak to me!" 

All of those present wept. Captain 
Leggero bowed respectfully over his 
leader and whispered in his ear these 
supplicating words, "Rise! Save your- 
self! — for your children — for Italy!" "I 
am choking," responded the Hero — 
"Give me a glass of water." He drank it; 
he arose. He turned and gave one last 
look full of infinite love and sorrow at 
the immobile form of the martyr, turning 
away sobbing like a child. He went to 
the door and stopped and offered a ring, 
which he had taken from the finger of 
Anita (the only treasure which he pos- 
sessed) to Ravaglia to compensate him 
for his hospitality and as a memento. 
"No," said the honest farmer, "keep it, it 
is sacred to you." On August ii, 1849, 
an abandoned dog rummaging about dis- 
covered a body which was buried in the 



136 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

shallow sand of Marina in the Parish of 
Mandriole. The authorities came and 
found it was the body of a pregnant 
woman, who had her hair clipped like a 
Puritan's and wore a skirt and mantle. 
The clothes were removed and displayed 
to help in the identification of the body. 
"And the brave consort of the Hero of 
two worlds was reburied nude in the 
earth. A few days after a man of robust 
appearance, but pallid and sad, left the 
country of Modigliana. That man was 
Garibaldi. 

He escaped capture by some Crotian 
soldiers who were swearing ostrogothic 
oaths of vengeance against "Garibalda" — 
too drunk for pursuit and finally reached 
Nice, his native city. He embraced his 
mother already past 84 years, kissed his 
children and wept with them for the loss 
of Anita, and with a heavy heart betook 
himself to exile: embarking on a ship go- 
ing direct to Tunis; but the Bey refused 
to give him shelter lest he bring trouble 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 137 

on his own head. Then the Hero wan- 
dered from Maddalina — the largest is- 
land in the Straits of Bonifacio (Sar- 
dinia) to Gibraltar — from Gibraltar to 
Tangiers ; and finally took ship for New 
York, where he was given brotherly care 
by an Italian named Antonio Meucci — 
whom the Italian writer and publicist, 
Luigi Carnevale claims is the defrauded 
inventor of the telephone which today is 
called ^'the Bell.'' Of the grounds for 
such statement, if there be any, the writer 
has no knowledge. 

This was one of the darkest hours in the 
checkered life of our hero. Discouraged 
and depressed almost beyond endurance, 
he went to England. The reserved and 
undemonstrative Britons went wild with 
enthusiasm, giving him a reception most 
memorable, such as few men have ever 
seen.* 



* Garibaldi had an adored and devoted brother, who 
dying left him a modest fortune with which he bought 
the Island of Caprera. 



CHAPTER XII 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

jL he early acts of Pope Pius IX's pon- 
tificate and his later acts are utterly at 
variance. He was as Cardinal Feretti, 
a liberal. He loved Italy and hated Aus- 
trian domination, but as Pope, subjected 
by necessity to the influence of the Cardi- 
nals, many of whom were implacable 
enemies of free institutions, he changed. 
What is influence? It is an atmosphere 
which encompasses us : we cannot breathe 
without it. The Cardinals, all the high 
dignitaries of the Roman Catholic 
church had been fostered and supported 
by the autocratic government of Austria. 
Pope Pius IX was compelled by all the 
rules governing social life to do nothing 
contrary to the wishes of Austria. Cer- 
vantes wrote ^'the obligations which rest 
upon a gentleman to make a suitable rc- 
138 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 1 39 

turn for kindnesses received are ties that 
will not let a generous heart go free." 

If reason were an innate endowment 
mankind might justly be blamed for its 
manifold sins; whereas it is a slow and 
tardy accomplishment dependent on cir- 
cumstances, conditions and surroundings 
over which the individual has no control. 
We imagine ourselves to be free agents; 
but instead we are ruled by an inexorable 
past. "Few men, be they Emperors, 
Kings or Popes, are strong enough to defy 
the traditions of the high office to which 
they have been raised." Between Victor 
Emmanuel and Pope Pius IX there ex- 
isted a sincere and profound love which 
never waned — their views respecting the 
union of church and state were totally 
different: the latter could not forget that 
he had once held almost the same liberal 
views as the former. All the liberals and 
most conservatives looked upon Rome as 
the eventual capital of united Italy, a 
plebiscite was made, and the vote showed 



140 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

overwhelmingly in favor of it. But when 
overtures were made by the King to bring 
about this change, Cardinal Antonelli, 
the implacable enemy of free institutions, 
sent the insulting reply that the Pope 
could have no dealings with a robber 
king. 

At a later period Victor Emmanuel 
sent an envoy to the Pope, respectfully 
but positively demanding the retirement 
of foreign troops which he had called to 
his aid under General Moricier. Pius 
IX refused to consider the request. The 
King sent troops into the papal territory 
— the Pope had given the order to the 
French Zouaves that when a breach 
should be made in the walls of Rome, 
resistance should cease. It did not take 
long to make that breach. It was a short 
campaign — the foreign army disap- 
peared. Catholic Europe professed to be 
shocked and scandalized by this proceed- 
ing — but the love and respect of these 
two men for each other continued as long 



AUSTRIA- HUNGARY I4I 

as life lasted. In 1878 the King was 
stricken with a fatal illness. Pope Pius 
IX deeply moved sent word to him that 
nothing but the infirmities of age pre- 
vented him from coming himself to ad- 
minister the last rites which he sent a 
cardinal to perform. Pope Pius IX died 
the following month. 

Throughout the history of mankind 
every age and every people has had its 
dominant ideals. Amongst the Greeks 
it was artistic proficiency. In India it 
was philosophic calm, self control. In 
Egypt and Chaldea it was erudition. 

"The Chaldee came with his starry lore 
That built up Babylon's crown and creed 
And bricks were stamped on the Tigres' shore 
With signs which our sages scarce can read." 

When man first emerged from sav- 
agery brute force was his ideal. In 
modern times other ideals have prevailed. 
In America and much of Europe during 
the last century, it has been financial sue- 



142 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

cess; the accumulation of money. The 
greatest inventions, those of incalculable 
benefit to man, count for little unless 
backed by money. A few people who 
have spent a long life in the pursuit of 
this ideal and failed, have gained a self 
knowledge and self development far sur- 
passing in real worth the ideal which 
they sought. Self knowledge and self 
development are agreeably acquired by 
the study of history and the lives of great 
men. 

In spite of the blighting and blasting 
effect of the Inquisition in Italy the ex- 
amples of great characters are numerous 
and invite our attention. 

"Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime 
And departing leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of Time. 

Footprints that perhaps another 
Sailing o'er Life's solemn main — 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
Seeing shall take heart again." 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 1 43 

MICHELANGELO 

No artist, sculptor or painter ever lived 
who so powerfully influenced the age in 
which he lived as did Michelangelo. 
Kings and pontifs could not afford to 
neglect him, yet his life was a continual 
struggle with patrons, against enemies 
and adverse circumstances. Although 
personally a lover of simplicity and soli- 
tude he lived in the midst of intrigue and 
treachery. In 1547, the year of the death 
of Vittoria Colonna,* he became, at the 
age of 72 years, the chief architect of 
Saint Peter's, where he worked without 
salary — a labor of love to God — during 
five pontificates to the time of his death 
at the age of nearly ninety. To him is 
due the proportions of the great dome, 
and the structural security of the enor- 
mous building. In his earlier life in Flor- 
ence he came under the influence of 



* Vittoria Colonna was the widow of the Marquis of 
Pescara. 



144 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Savonarola for whom he had the greatest 
reverence. 

Another great Italian w^as Galileo, 
whose fame, but for the Inquisition, 
would have filled a world's ear. Al- 
though born in Pisa, he was descended 
from a noble Florentine family. At the 
age of 19 he observed a swinging lamp 
suspended from the ceiling of the Ca- 
thedral in Pisa, and his experiments 
proved the isochronism of the pendulum, 
which resulted in its use to measure time. 
He invented the hydrostatic balance 
which created so much enthusiasm, that 
his contemporaries called him the Archi- 
medes of his age. He invented the first 
thermometer and his discoveries relative 
to the laws governing falling bodies revo- 
lutionized previous notions. He taught 
his pupils to measure the height of moun- 
tains by the shadows which they cast. 
He did not invent the first telescope; that 
was done, according to some authorities, 
by an obscure Hollander, others say it 



AUSTRIA- HUNGARY 145 

was the invention of a Greek. But he 
did make a telescope of threefold refract- 
ing power and went to Rome and in the 
gardens of the Quirinal showed the won- 
ders of the heavenly bodies to multitudes 
of people. With his own hands he made 
and sold hundreds of these telescopes. 

He also recognized Copernicus's dis- 
covery relative to the solar system. In 
1616 he was cited to appear before the 
Inquisition by Pope Urban VIII. The 
Holy Office decreed that his theories rela- 
tive to the solar system were philosophic- 
ally absurd, and bade him discontinue 
his teaching; at the same time Coper- 
nicus's book on that subject was inter- 
dicted. Stricken in years, dreading im- 
prisonment which at his age meant death, 
he obeyed. At the same time he was ac- 
cused of heresy. That he escaped death 
may be because he had many friends in 
the Sacred College. A few years later 
he was permitted to go to Arcitri — near 
Florence. In the year 1638 when he was 



146 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

74 years old he was blind but his mind 
undimmed. Milton, who was then 30, 
visited him there. 

Copernicus is generally mentioned as a 
German philosopher and astronomer. 
He was a learned Pole, born in the vil- 
lage of Thorn on the Vistula River. He 
was educated in Italy and gave lectures 
on astronomy in Rome. He lived and 
died nearly 200 years before his natal 
village fell into the hands of the rapacious 
Prussia dominated by Bismarck. 

When in Florence in 1862 the writer 
read a biography of Michelangelo from 
which she gathered the idea that previous 
to the building of Saint Peter's church it 
had been held as impossible to erect a 
dome larger than one of a certain size, for 
example, perhaps that of the Duomo of 
Florence, for want of support for the cen- 
tral portion — and that Michelangelo 
conceived the idea of its being accom- 
plished by the use of a double drum, 
which, explained in simple language, is a 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 1 47 

dome within a dome, so when in Rome 
she got permission, went up on the top 
of Saint Peter's and saw the double 
drum; in her mind's eye she can still 
see the great beams extending from the 
inside dome to the outside dome. The 
writer has tried to settle the truth of 
this statement; she has no record except 
the memory of something which occurred 
nearly sixty years ago. She could have 
been silent but she really wants to know 
and, having no reputation for either 
knowledge or wisdom to lose, she deliber- 
ately joins the great throng of those 
^'who rush in where angels fear to tread." 
There are in Rome over 50 magnificent 
basilicas, many of them crowned by great 
domes; the entire structure so beautifully 
proportioned that, when seen near at 
hand, they compare favorably with Saint 
Peter's and seem larger than they are. 
But when we took a carriage and drove 
to Ostia, twenty miles away and looked 
back, the smaller domes had disappeared; 



148 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

that of Saint Peter's eclipsed a moderate 
portion of the horizon, seeming so near 
as if one could touch it. The same re- 
sult obtained when we went to Tivali in 
the opposite direction. We could but 
thank God that human hands and human 
genius had created such a miracle of 
beauty, and to be humbly grateful that 
our eyes had been permitted to be- 
hold it. 

The cost of building Saint Peter's 
church was so enormous that Pope Leo X 
was constrained to raise money by sell- 
ing indulgences and Germany became the 
chosen field for that purpose. This, with 
other causes, resulted in the Protestant 
Reformation. To go still further back to 
Christ's time, a scribe said to Him, 
'^Master I will follow thee whitherso- 
ever thou goest." He replied, 'The foxes 
have holes and the birds of the air have 
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where 
to lay his head." Contemplating these 
contrasting facts suggests the conclusion 



AUSTRIA- HUNGARY 149 

that splendor dazzles only to ensnare. We 
cannot go far in any direction without 
striking great fundamental truths. As 
in reading Faust by the poet, Goethe, 
when Mephistopheles first appeared to 
Dr. Faust in his study, the Doctor asked 
him who he was and the Devil replied, 
"I am part of that force not understood, 
which always wills the bad and always 
works the good." 

The persons responsible for and man- 
aging the Inquisition in the Roman 
Catholic church no doubt thought they 
were doing God's service and helping to 
reform the world; but those who would 
reform the world must show that they do 
not act in the heat of wild impulse; their 
lives should not be sustained by passion- 
ate error, and they should be religious 
students of the divine purpose, so as not 
to confound the fancies of a day w4th the 
requisitions of eternal good. But their 
doings seem to have been the reverse of 
all this. They fancied that the dis- 



I50 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

coveries of scientific truths were under- 
mining religion, and they immediately 
set about installing ignorance as sentinels 
to guard against this result. Men cannot 
think alike. The tendency is to multiply 
beliefs as population increases and has 
been so in past ages: as when the Greek 
church and the Roman Catholic church 
through conditions and views as to the 
Trinity and other points, grew asunder 
and separated. The Roman Catholic 
church was again split by protestantism. 
The late, great war has shown us how 
harmoniously catholics and protestants 
can work together under the banner of 
one common aim, viz., the destruction of 
the dogma ''that might is right." But it is 
essential that we respect the opinions of 
others. William EUery Channing wrote 
"Esteem no man more for thinking as 
you do, and no man less for thinking 
otherwise, but judge each according to 
the principles which govern his life." In 
1892, sometime before the Columbian 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 15 1 

Exposition met in Chicago in 1893, 
Charles Carroll Bonney, a lawyer, for- 
merly of Peoria, and later of Chicago, 
originated the idea of instituting a con- 
gress of religions, in connection with the 
Columbian Exposition. This was done 
to the delight of many people interested 
in such subjects. It was at that congress 
of religions that the writer heard for the 
first time the great suffrage leader, 
and eloquent woman orator. Dr. Anna 
Howard Shaw, of whom Josephus 
Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, said: 

"This great woman was trained in 
Methodist surroundings, and first stirred 
the hearts of men and women in a Metho- 
dist Episcopal church — she lives with im- 
mortals — the pride of her country which 
mourns her death in the hour when full 
suffrage to women will soon crown her 
life's devotion. The Methodist church 
failed in extending full fellowship to 
this singularly gifted woman, but what 
it lost for its communion, the world and 



152 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 



the church gained in her wider devotion 
to a cause which will bless all the world." 
Mr. Bonney was a Swedenborgian. The 
first work of the organization (the Con- 
gress of Religions), however, chanced to 
be done by a distinguished clergyman of 
the Presbyterian church — and later it was 
claimed that the idea originated with 
him, but this was an error. The author 
simply knows that the idea originated 
with Charles Carroll Bonnev. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE GOVERNMENT OF ITALY 

1 HE government of Italy, when judged 
by its constitution alone, although called 
a constitutional monarchy, bears a strong- 
er resemblance to the autocratic govern- 
ment of Austria than to any other. Its 
constitution was that granted to Sardinia 
by Charles Albert in 1848. When Sar- 
dinia's King, Victor Emmanuel II, be- 
came the ruler of United Italy, that old 
constitution went along with him. It 
never has been changed or revised, there 
being no provision for its amendment, so 
all changes have been made by the ordi- 
nary method of legislation, as in Eng- 
land, which has been the political model 
of the Italians. According to that con- 
stitution, as in Austria, the members of 
153 



154 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

the senate are appointed by the King and 
for life: the members of the lower house 
are elected by the people; the qualifica- 
tions for voting are to males only of 21 
years and upwards, who can read and 
write, and who pay a stipulated tax or 
rent. Later illiterates after 30 years of 
age were given the franchise. In some of 
the Southern provinces of Italy it is 
claimed that a large per cent of the peo- 
ple can neither read nor write, hence as 
the King has the power of dismissing the 
lower house and as there are so few quali- 
fied voters, it cannot be said, to be a gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people and 
for the people as we understand that 
phrase. These facts nullify entirely the 
accusation that Italy broke faith with the 
nations forming the Triple Alliance. It 
is doubtful if the people of Italy had any- 
thing to do with the making of that pact. 
The Triple Alliance was made during 
the short reign of King Humbert, a most 
amiable and easy-going ruler. The prime 



THE GOVERNMENT OF ITALY 1 55 

minister of Italy, Antonio Salandra in an 
address June, 1915, to the people of the 
Capital of Italy proved by documentary 
evidence that Austria, not Italy was the 
first to break the Triple Alliance. There 
is little doubt that the rulers of Italy 
were at first in sympathy with Germany 
— not Austria. Victor Emmanuel III is 
quite human, being closely allied by 
social conditions, as by blood with Ger- 
many. Queen Margharita, mother of 
Victor Emmanuel III, is the grand- 
daughter of King John of Saxony. Vic- 
tor Emmanuel II married his first cousin, 
daughter of Archduke Rannieri of Aus- 
tria and Queen Margharita married 
her first cousin King Humbert. The 
crowned heads of Europe and Great 
Britain are a net work of close relation- 
ships resulting often, as we have seen, in 
intrigue and tragedy. 

The above statement relative to the 
Government of Italy is virtually true up 
to a certain date, but, there have been 



156 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

great changes within the last few years, as 
shown in the career of General Joseph 
Garibaldi, who, but five years ago, was 
fighting as an officer in France for 
France. To enable the reader to com- 
prehend the strides which the Italian 
people have made and are still making 
in the direction of real self-government, 
we insert here a statement from the pen 
of A. Mastro Valerio, the able editor of 
La Tribuna Italiana-Trans-Atlantica, 
Chicago : 

''In regard to the power of the King 
of Italy relative to the national parlia- 
ment: he always follows the will of the 
people, viz., public opinion. If a party 
in parliament defeats the one which is in 
power, the king consults public opinion 
as it is expressed by the Press. He takes 
advice from prominent men of all parties 
and after due consideration, entrusts the 
government of that party which, more 
than any other, enjoys the confidence of 
the nation. The King of Italy reigns but 
does not govern. The people alone rule 



THE GOVERNMENT OF ITALY 1 57 

through their representatives, whom the 
people select as the best fitted to lead. 
Senators are appointed for life by the 
King, but only after the suggestion of 
the government, i. e. (the people) and 
not by his exclusive volition. 

^'A law is now before the Italian par- 
liament for discussion and approbation, 
concerning a reform in the election of 
senators of the Kingdom; according to 
it, there are to be appointed senators, and 
senators elected by the people. A new 
law concerning the electorate of the mem- 
bers of the lower house of Parliament 
has just been passed with very radical 
changes from the old laws : the most im- 
portant one being that women have a full, 
free vote in all kinds of elections — not 
one excluded — (more liberal than in the 
United States) — and that the nominal col- 
leges have been abolished to make way 
for the plural colleges: viz., that all the 
voters of each province must elect altO; 
gether a certain number of parliamentary 
members; just the same as we, in Chi- 



158 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

cago, elect the judges, county commis- 
sioners and other officials as well as the 
United States senators; but not the con- 
gressmen and the members of the state 
legislatures. 

"Since the year 1848, when the present 
constitution was granted, the King of 
Italy has never dismissed the Parliament 
by his own will or ordered a new election 
without the consent of the people which 
constitutes the government — when it has 
been evident that the representatives of 
the people, in the national parliament did 
no longer enjoy the confidence of their 
constituents, or the issue on which they 
were elected had died out, and new issues 
had sprung up on which the people 
needed to be consulted and given a chance 
to confirm their representatives or elect 
new ones, then the King followed public 
opinion as expressed by the Press, the 
representatives and their leaders: then 
Parliament was dismissed. Since 1848, 
when the present constitution was 
granted, the King of Italy has never 



I 



THE GOVERNMENT OF ITALY I 59 

acted in conflict with his people and their 
government. He has always bowed to 
the will of the Italian people. The oaths 
taken by the various officials — notaries 
public, etc., — also the judges in writing 
up a sentence — emphasize the fact, that 
Victor Emmanuel is King of Italy by the 
grace of God and the will of the Italian 
people." * 

As, for a long period in past ages Italy 
led the world intellectually, she now 
assumes a leadership which it is hoped 
she can keep. She has given her women 
full suffrage whilst we in the United 
States are struggling, state by state, to 
accomplish the same thing. 

During the pontificate of Pius X, a 
delegation of progressive Italian women 
called upon the Holy Father seeking his 
endorsement of their demands for equal 
suffrage and equal treatment as human 



* If I have interpreted Signor Valerie's letter to me cor- 
rectly there seems to be a little discrepancy between his 
notion of our electorate and my own but the whole matter 
is not very important. 



l6o ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

beings. But he rejected their petition, 
reminding them that God created man 
first and woman second: man to be the 
lord of the earth, and woman to be man's 
companion, helpmate and consolation, 
and emphasized the fact that she must re- 
main subject to him. But, notwithstand- 
ing the Pope's attitude (whose pontificate 
ended but a few short years ago), the 
Italian Chamber of Deputies, on Septem- 
ber 4th, 191 9, granted the right of suf- 
frage to Italian women by a vote of 174 
to 55.* 



* Signior Valerio is anti-clerical and his paper, La 
Tribuna Italiana, advocates the education of Italian chil- 
dren in the public schools as the shortest, surest and 
safest way to make good citizens of the next generation. 
There are many newspapers in the United States pub- 
lished in foreign languages; if, like La Tribuna Italiana 
they advocate the patronage of our public schools for the 
education of the young, they are capable of accomplishing 
a tremendous amount of good, for our schools are the 
bulwark and may be the salvation of the Republic. Such 
papers should be fostered, encouraged and supported by 
all loyal Americans, There is something about the 
atmosphere of our free institutions which enables the 
second generation of all our foreign population to tackle 
old problems which inspired only awe in their ancestors, 
with a fearlessness which is both naive and refreshing. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CHURCH AND STATE IN FRANCE 



I 



N the year of 1905 an Act called ^The 
Law of Associations" was passed by the 
French government, the purpose of which 
was to restrict the political power of the 
church by means of the suppression of 
religious orders of men and women upon 
the soil of France. The cause of this 
extreme measure was claimed to be that 
the French clergy had always been in 
sympathy with every reactionary move- 
ment in France. That these religious 
orders were a nursery for aristocratic con- 
spiracies; every intrigue against life of 
the Republic had been instigated by cleri- 
calism acting within those orders; and 
hence the expulsion was essential to the 
safety of the state. It was also expressly 
161 



Ib2 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

declared that "The Act of Associations" 
was aimed not at religion, not at the 
church but at clericalism, a powerful ele- 
ment within the church which was con- 
verting it into a political as well as a 
spiritual power. "At the time when the 
agitation on the subject was at a critical 
stage, Pope Pius X sent an encyclical 
addressed to the church in France which 
made compromise with the government 
impossible. A mandatory syllabus to 
Frenchmen relative to their political re- 
lations to the government under which 
they lived, resulted in the immediate sep- 
aration of Church and State and the 
transfer of all church property to the 
Government was at once passed by the 
French senate. The calmness with which 
this revolutionary measure was discussed 
and executed showed that the highest in- 
telligence of the nation had been con- 
vinced of its necessity. The power de- 
rived from the ownership of ecclesiastical 
estates was no longer in the hands of men 



CHURCH AND STATE IN FRANCE 1 63 

in sympathy with the enemies of the gov- 
ernment." "In the year 1907 Pope 
Pius X issued an encyclical to the Church 
Universal, from the Vatican — the avowed 
purpose of this syllabus was to warn the 
church against the spirit of Modernism, 
meaning, of course, the conclusions of 
modern science and research (so far as 
they conflict with the infallibility of the 
church dogmas). All Bishops of the 
church are commanded to treat modern- 
ism as a disease; to forbid the reading 
of literature infected with its germs; the 
printing and circulation of literature so 
infected to be suppressed by censors ap- 
pointed for that purpose, every Bishop 
being ordered to report to the Vatican, 
under oath, the conditions in his diocese 
revealed by such censorship." 

In 1883 Pope Pius IX issued a decree 
— non expedit — which forbade faithful 
catholics to take part in the elections in 
order not to participate in what he termed 
a usurping government. 



164 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

ITALIAN BOUNDARIES 

The eastern coast of the Adriatic right- 
fully belongs to the Italian people and 
they know it. The archeological dis- 
coveries there show no trace of the Teu- 
ton or any other Northern people. The 
Tavala Clesiana * proves conclusively 
that the Romans once possessed that part 
of the world; that they held the Adriatic 
as a Latin Lake. If Italy should relin- 
quish her just claims for any cause what- 
ever, it would be most magnanimous but 
for the other powers to insist on her doing 
so recalls Sidney Smith's allegory on 
English generosity. A sees B in distress 
and immediately sets about inducing C 



* In April, 1869, two Italian peasants digging in a 
field near Cles, in the Trentino, found a bronze tablet 
in perfect condition on which was inscribed a decree 
written in Latin by which the Roman emperor Claudius 
in the year 49 A. D. settled the dispute, that had lasted 
so long, concerning the nationality of the inhabitants of 
the valley on the extreme north of the province of Trent. 
(Inscription too long to copy.) 

Trentino is the charming mountainous region lying be- 
tween Venito and Lombardy. 



SETTLEMENT OF BOUNDARIES 1 65 

and D to relieve him. Italy's claims are 
based on established precedent which has 
obtained for ages in South America in 
settling similar questions, viz., the an- 
cient boundaries. The Jugo Slavic 
claims are based on nothing but the need 
of a port on the Adriatic. But the strong- 
est claim of all is that Fiume is an Italian 
city overwhelmingly Italian, and to give 
it to any other people would be a viola- 
tion of the basic principle on which the 
League of Nations rests, viz., self de- 
termination as to government of the 
smallest power. 

The whole of South America for two 
centuries after the Columbian discovery 
was a viceroyalty of Spain. Necessity in- 
creased the number of these viceroyalties, 
and one by one the peoples comprising 
them, have formed governments, freed 
themselves from Spanish rule and become 
independent Republics forming with the 
United States the Pan American union of 
twenty-one Republics. Disputes and dif- 
ferences as to the boundaries between 



1 66 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

these governments have often arisen and 
have generally been settled by arbitra- 
tion based on the old viceroyalty boun- 
daries. The dispute between Chili and 
Peru, is an exception; it had a unique 
cause and precipitated a fierce war; even 
the trouble between great Britain and 
Venezuela was finally settled by arbitra- 
tion after 70 years of bickering. Presi- 
dent Cleveland invoked the aid of the 
Monroe Doctrine which England at first 
repudiated. Her claim had been unjust 
and overreaching. Finally she behaved 
beautifully and a committee formed of 
English and Venezuela men were unani- 
mous in their decision. England lost 
nothing except the opportunity to cap- 
ture a territory larger by one-half than the 
six New England states. 

General Joseph Garibaldi * in the 
United States on a special mission for the 
Italian government says the population 
of Fiume is 90 per cent Italian in spite of 

* He is the grandson of the "Hero of Two Worlds." 



BOUNDARIES 1 67 

its domination by Austria. The impres- 
sion among the people of the United 
States is that Fiume is the only port the 
Jugo Slavs can have; this is not true, there 
are seven ports the Jugo Slavs can use to 
greater profit. But Italy must have it be- 
cause of its strategical position easily 
seen on the map. No other port would 
be a proper substitute as a military post 
should an enemy's fleet be in the waters of 
Fiume. 

In 1797 after Campo Formio Napo- 
leon formed Dalmatia into a dukedom for 
his Field Marshal Soult; it had a popu- 
lation of about half a million with Zara 
as the chief city. After seventeen years 
Waterloo came and it reverted to Aus- 
tria — and Dalmatia and Trentino are 
now a part of Jugo Slavia which, if the 
principles governing the League of Na- 
tions are not violated, can join Italy by 
a plebiscite if the people so choose. 

English common law, which is our 
heritage, is based on precedent. 



1 68 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

The great Genoese navigator gave the 
New World to the Old. America's debt 
to Italy is too vast to be overlooked ; but 
seeing it with no effort to liquidate the 
obligation is ungrateful if not sinful. The 
United States has made one great effort 
to pay France for her aid during the 
Revolutionary War and it is now Italy's 
turn to be remembered. A young Chi- 
cago woman, Miss Mary S. Nixon, a 
graduate of a great Eastern school, mas- 
tered the Italian language, went to Flor- 
ence and taught in a girls' school there. 
The great war necessitated the closing of 
that school but she certainly set a noble 
example, which, now that the war is over, 
it is to be hoped will be followed. The 
war has taught us many facts: one 
weighty one, viz., that many things we 
deemed essential to our happiness and 
comfort were entirely superfluous. Tens 
of thousands of young women of wealth 
and leisure, in the United States, who 
never did a stroke of work in their lives 



women's work for the allied cause i6g 

before, moved by patriotism, rose early, 
went to the Red Cross rooms and other 
places and worked till late at night for 
the Allied Cause. What are these young 
women doing now? Some are still work- 
ing, having learned '4t is more blessed to 
give than to receive." There never was 
a time in the world's history when the 
needs were so great, or the opportunities 
so abundant for accomplishing great 
philanthropic deeds: deeds which will 
bring joy to thousands now pining in 
misery, and happiness and fame to the 
agents of mercy! True ambition is not a 
blemish, but a spur to noble endeavor. 
Southern Italy is in crying need of re- 
lief — and it should be our solemn and 
religious duty to aid her. Man is not 
normal till he becomes religious. I have 
a deep veneration for all religions, even 
those beliefs which I cannot understand. 
Some friends whom I love are theoso- 
phists, and claim to have a dim recollec- 
tion of a previous existence, whilst I am 



I70 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

taxed to the utmost to realize that some 
of the remarkable experiences of my life 
really happened. This seems a contradic- 
tion but is none. 

The Roman Catholic church today 
claims infallibility, which is neither a 
modest nor a timid assumption! If it is 
infallible now, was it infallible in the 
time of Galileo? If infallible then and 
now what will the verdict of the future 
be when the year 2219 comes? We smile 
at the conclusions reached by the Holy 
Office three centuries ago. Italy for a 
couple of centuries was ground to the 
earth by the despotic rule of Austria. At 
last in i860 it achieved its independence; 
but the church took no part in its unifica- 
tion, and now withholds its support and 
sympathy. 

There are thousands, perhaps millions 
of devoted catholics who admit that the 
possession of temporal sovereignty is no 
essential part of the privileges of the suc- 
cessor of Saint Peter. It is most apparent 



I 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 17^ 

that the church is spending millions of 
money in these rich and prosperous 
United States to the neglect of Southern 
Italy, the poverty of which is desperate. 
In 1910 the earthquake destroyed whole 
towns: 70,000 people perished. This 
tragedy was followed by much emigra- 
tion — so that now there are many living 
in those desolate regions who are de- 
pendent on money sent them by relatives 
living in the United States. 

According to Italian writers, Italy was 
infested with German spies as was the 
United States. In respect to recent and 
remote revelations touching Germany's 
effort to influence and control the policy 
of the United States government, through 
spies as well as through her regularly ap- 
pointed government officials, the friendly 
agreement to exchange professors of the 
great universities of both countries, looks 
much like coquetry on the part of Ger- 
many, though our professors were sin- 
cere. The most learned of our scholars 



172 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

who were selected to fill these exchange 
chairs were justly envied. Later when 
our eyes were opened to the intrigue and 
deceit practiced under the guise of friend- 
ship and mutual respect, our distin- 
guished professors must have felt as if 
they had been jilted, and the game so 
adroitly played as to bar redress, legal or 
otherwise. 

It has been suggested that we leave the 
German language in abeyance for a time, 
whilst we devote ourselves to learning the 
romance languages. In the opinion of 
the writer that is a narrow and short 
sighted policy. The Teutons are a great 
people, they have a literature so valuable 
that no people can afford to neglect it and 
a rich and flexible language. We must 
learn it, the Russian, French, Italian, 
Spanish and any other language that may 
profit us by its mastery. The Germans 
now being the linguist's of the world was 
not caused by her central position, 
surrounded by people speaking other 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 173 

tongues, so much as by her shrewd policy 
of requiring but one year's military serv- 
ice of the young man who mastered sev- 
eral tongues beside his own. And we, 
with all our boasted ability and self- 
confidence and a population of ioo,oco,- 
ooo, will require a century to get where 
Germany is today in respect to being lin- 
guists. And unless we reform our drift- 
ing policy — it might take a thousand 
years. The Kaiser and his war lords con- 
sciously or unconsciously seem to have il- 
lustrated Mephistopheles' reply to Dr. 
Faust when he asked who he was. ^'Ein 
Theil von jener Kraft, Die stets das Bose 
will und stets das Gute schafft." 



CHAPTER XV 

ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

A HE Methodist Episcopal church of 
the United States according to Dr. B. 
M. Tipple in the Northwestern Christian 
Advocate, "After 50 years of work in 
Southern Italy to mitigate the evils of 
degrading poverty, has caught a broader 
and more thrilling vision than ever be- 
fore, confronted by a mighty crisis, it has 
laid plans accordingly.'' He says, "that 
men, women and older children there 
work 12 hours a day for a mere pittance 
of 19 or 20 cents. They are not idlers; 
they are unhappy slaves still awaiting 
their redemption." The United States 
must come to their rescue. To quote 
William Dean Howells in Pordenone, 
"He who sleeps in perpetual noise, is 
awakened by silence." We have had the 
noise and now comes the silence. The 
174 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 175 

United States is getting awake. Our 
compatriots have done much for France 
and Belgium. Now let us do something 
for Italy. Italy has vast undeveloped 
water power, but little wood suitable for 
poles on which to string electric wires, 
and this has halted power development. 
But through American ingenuity and the 
persistent effort of a veteran engineer, A. 
J. Bates, who with his three sons have 
overcome great difficulties — there has 
been shipped to Savona on the Gulf of 
Genoa, a whole factory of specially built 
machinery, mortars, tools, etc. This en- 
terprise is expected to furnish the life 
blood for the revival of the nation's in- 
dustries. But Savona is in Northern 
Italy which is measurably prosperous. It 
is Southern Italy which we must reach, 
where even the methods of tilling the soil 
are antiquated and inadequate. 

It appears that some time before the 
close of the great war, the United States 
government had need to know more than 



176 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

it did, of Persia, Bagdad and the coun- 
tries about the Caspian Sea, and invited 
Harry Pratt Judson, the distinguished 
head of the University of Chicago to in- 
vestigate the matter. President Judson 
condescended to go there for that purpose 
himself. He certainly did accomplish 
an intellectual, political and financial 
feat. In an address to the members of the 
Fortnightly of Chicago on the subject, 
wherein he laid no claim to having done 
anything remarkable, he made one state- 
ment which is not irrelevant to our sub- 
ject, viz.. He said the German govern- 
ment had planned to build a railroad 
across Persia. In square miles Persia is 
a trifle more than three times the size of 
France. The Persians greatly desired 
such a road, hence were disappointed 
when the prospect of one ceased. Presi- 
dent Judson did not say Germany's aims 
in building this road were altruistic, 
neither did he say her aim was to be able 
to strike a blow at England through her 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 1 77 

dependency, India. The question arises, 
why cannot our civil engineers help the 
Persians to build their own railroad for 
themselves? A school fellow of the 
writer, Hamilton E. Towle, of Lee, New 
Hampshire, a civil engineer, was em- 
ployed for nearly four years by the Aus- 
trian government in building the dock 
basin and railway works at Pola. When 
his work was finished, returning from 
Europe with his family, to his native 
state, he took passage on the S. S. Great 
Eastern at Liverpool. A few days out 
from port the ship encountered a terrific 
storm, which unshipped the rudder. 
The vessel was at the mercy of the storm 
and consternation reigned among passen- 
gers and crew. Towle went to the Cap- 
tain of the Great Eastern and modestly 
offered to make an attempt to get the 
great leviathan of the sea under control. 
His services were declined. Later when 
the ship was rolling in the trough of the 
sea; when passengers and members of the 



178 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

crew had broken legs from being thrown 
about, the Captain consented. Towle, by- 
some means, remedied the difficulty and 
the ship returned to Liverpool. This his- 
torical fact known to the writer is men- 
tioned merely to show what genius and 
enterprise may do.* 

For centuries Italy was the school 
house, the University for the surrounding 
peoples — what is to hinder our beloved 
land from serving the outside world in a 
similar manner? 

In the great war which ended so 
abruptly, our government made tests as to 



* The writer arrived in Liverpool about 36 hours after 
the S. S. Great Eastern had returned from her disastrous 
voyage. The London newspapers had given a complete 
account of the affair, in which full credit was given to 
Hamilton E. Towle of saving the great ship. Thirteen 
months later, the writer, homeward bound, was in Liver- 
pool again. She heard many statements by men to the 
effect that "what Towle did for the Great Eastern had 
been known to the British Admiralty for years and that 
it amounted to nothing." This unusual experience led 
the writer to investigate with the result that she publishes 
in the appendix, pages 240-244, the Docket account of the 
wrecking and salving of the S. S. Great Eastern. 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 1 79 

the intelligence of our private soldiers 
which may be of great benefit to mankind 
in general and cannot fail to be of vast 
service to the commissioned officers of 
our Army. The tests were prepared by 
a joint committee of the American 
Psychological Association and the Na- 
tional Research Council. On November 
ist, 1918, one and one-half million ex- 
aminations had been made. The rating 
w^hich a man earned furnished a fairly 
reliable index of his ability to learn, to 
think quickly and accurately, to analyze 
a situation, to maintain a state of mental 
alertness, and to comprehend and follow 
instructions. The rating of the men was 
approximately as follows : 

A — Very superior intelligence 4-5*^ 

B — Superior intelligence 8-10% 

C (Plus)— High average intelligence 15-18% 

C — Average intelligence 25 % 

C — ^Low average intelligence 20% 

D — Inferior intelligence 15% 

D & E — Very inferior intelligence io% 

(Majority below 10 years in mental age.) 



l8o ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

The score made by these men in the 
tests were found to be little influenced by 
schooling. Indeed, some of the highest 
records were made by men who had never 
completed the eighth grade. This fact 
but confirms Oliver Wendell Holmes' 
dictum ''If you wish to make much of 
your youth of 17 you must begin with his 
grandfather." 

The peace loving Quaker who wor- 
ships God in a church built of logs which 
had been squared with an adz and the 
Pope saying mass under the great dome 
of Saint Peter's, seem far asunder: but 
both worship the same God, and both are 
aiming at the same goal — the roads are 
different. Both wish to be able to live 
above temptation and to die with a smile 
on their lips. When our great President 
Lincoln by a proclamation freed 4,000,- 
000 slaves during our civil war (every 
stage of which I knew so well) , I felt that 
one war terrible though it was, had had 
its compensation. Faith leads me to the 



GENERAL COMMENTS l8l 

hope, almost the belief that the greater 
war will bring greater compensation, 
more spiritual, slower, surer but more 
far-reaching. Out there in France, "in 
no man's land and over the top" where 
our soldiers met God face to face, they 
saw the rabbi and the priest, the Salva- 
tion Army general and the protestant 
pastor, all had been reduced to one single 
simple creed — the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man — and the Jewish 
boy holding the crucifix before the dying 
eyes of his Catholic companion was but 
the sublime illustration of true religion. 
Men are searching the universe with tele- 
scope and microscope to find out the 
truth of things; they may lose faith in 
dogma, but fundamental truth is a flood- 
ing tide. Millions are looking to the 
Roman Catholic church for the sacred 
literature and teaching that shall guide 
the consciences of their world. Now 
that the autocratic reactionary all power- 
ful Austria no longer exists as a power 



1 82 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

in Government, it is to be hoped that the 
learned dignitaries who shape the papal 
policy will realize the changes brought 
about by the war and meet them honor- 
ably by reconciliations, and liberal re- 
forms. The church need not truckle to 
autocracy: she is free; she can leave the 
past to take care of itself — "Let the dead 
past bury its dead," — and strike out anew 
on a firm foundation, or she can place 
herself in open conflict with the expand- 
ing intellectual life of the world and the 
spirit of the age, try to drag the past of 
the church along with her, which may 
prove to be a Nemesis. If self govern- 
ment is to be a success, the masses must be 
educated; the voter, male and female, 
must have sufficient learning to be able to 
detect the chicanery of corrupt politi- 
cians, and the masses must do their own 
thinking. 

For the safety of the world religious 
intolerance must be frowned upon and 
left to die a natural death. The great sue- 



GENERAL COMMENTS 183 

cess of England wit Ky^colonists is mainly 
due to the fact that she does not meddle 
with their religions. In India she built 
railroads for them: so when crops failed 
in one section, instead of starving to death 
by the millions as they did formerly, they 
transported food by this road and live 
perhaps to learn the English language 
and imitate some of England's virtues. 



CHAPTER XVI 

ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

In 1901 the writer sailed up the Nile on 
a little boat named the Mayflower. There 
were great crowds and her state room 
was on the lower deck. Early in the 
morning she heard a sound, and looking 
out of her window, she saw a Moham- 
medan. He spread out on the deck a 
square piece of red cloth and was occu- 
pied for a long time in performing his 
devotions by abasing his forehead on a 
certain part of the cloth. In Vienna and 
Paris or any other great Catholic city, 
one often sees the cooks returning from 
market with their baskets of daily sup- 
plies. They enter some great church, set 
down the basket and kneeling beside it on 
the cold stone floor, offer their prayers; 
after a few minutes they pick up the bas- 
ket and trudge homeward. The worship 
184 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 1 85 

of the Mohammedan she could not un- 
derstand yet it commanded her respect; 
in it there was not the slightest hint of 
the Armenian massacres, nor was there a 
suggestion of the inquisition with its 
subterranean dungeons in the market 
women's prayers. Those terrible things 
are instigated by people higher up who 
have selfish aims. 

The long endurance of the Papacy dur- 
ing ages which have seen the disappear- 
ance of every other European institution 
that was in existence when the Papacy 
arose, is a fact which has been noticed 
by all thoughtful peoples. It is cited as 
evidence that the Church is not a mere 
human institution. But, to arrive at an 
impartial estimate of the Papacy the 
student must carefully distinguish its 
spiritual element — essential and abiding 
— from its secular adjuncts which wax 
and wane with the vicissitudes of Time 
and Place. A French archbishop was 
raised to the chair of Saint Peter; under 



1 86 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

the name of Clement V he removed the 
Papal residence from Rome to Avignon, 
a town within the French borders, where 
seven popes successively lived and ruled, 
directly under French influence. In the 
annals of the Church this is known as 
the ''Babylonian Captivity" — it lasted 
just seventy years and cast a dark cloud 
over the church for a century. 

Italy in her struggle for independence 
has the sympathy of the civilized world: 
it is extremely painful to have to except 
the one great original christian church, 
but truth and justice compel the admis- 
sion. If Rome turns her back on Italy 
it is to be hoped in the interest of com- 
mon humanity, that some great protestant 
church like the Methodist, or better still 
all the protestant organizations combined 
will come to the rescue and help her out 
of the Slough of Despond. 

The Roman Catholic church may be 
compared to a tremendously powerful 
engine, booming along on a magnificent 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 1 87 

road, but, if its aims are not in harmony 
with the requisitions of Eternal Good, 
'tis safe to prophesy she will jump the 
track and again illustrate that force 
which wills the bad and works the good. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

A GLIMPSE OF HEIDELBERG AFTER KING 
WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA BECAME EMPEROR 
I OF GERMANY, FOLLOWED BY GENERAL 
COMMENTS AND CONCLUSION. 

In the Spring of 1871 our family went 
to Europe for the health of my husband's 
father, General Abner Clarke Harding. 
The party consisted of my husband, my- 
self, four children, his parents and a 
friend of the family, Mr. John Brown. 
We sailed in a German ship for a German 
port. In Hanover the party separated, 
I going directly to Heidelberg, where 
after placing our son in school I kept 
house. The rest of the company went to 
Berlin to witness the entrance of the 
Grand Army into the city and the review 
188 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 1 89 

of the same by the newly made Emperor 
William I. 

We had letters of introduction to Pro- 
fessor Delffs of Heidelberg which en- 
abled us to enter at once into the society 
of the Faculty — Our traveling com- 
panions joined us later — Professor 
Delflf's only child Sophie, is the trans- 
lator of Victor Schefifel's novels into Eng- 
lish; she had just completed the transla- 
tion of his '^Ekkerhard'^ and asked me to 
assist her in correcting the proof. This 
I did though I have to confess that she 
had a more exact and critical knowledge 
of my native tongue than I had myself at 
that time. We also made the acquaint- 
ance of A. C. Hesing and wife of Chicago 
and their son Washington and his wife. 
Washington had graduated at Yale Uni- 
versity and had married a beautiful 
Boston girl whilst still a senior. He 
remained in Heidelberg two years, a 
special student, perfecting himself in the 
know^ledge of the German language, A. 



I90 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

C. Hesing being, as we understood, the 
editor and proprietor of the Chicago 
Staats Zeitung. The friendship with the 
Hesings which began at that early date, 
lasted as long as any of them lived. Ex- 
cepting fifteen months residence in 
Heidelberg I have never lived in a uni- 
versity town; there is something very de- 
lightful in the atmosphere of such a place. 
The population seems to be more choice, 
more intellectual, more staid yet more in 
harmony with the spirit of the age. 
Among my Heidelberg friends there 
were many who spoke English perfectly 
and some had a critical knowledge of 
Shakespeare. Professor Delfifs one day 
asked me which of Shakespeare's plays 
was my favorite. I answered him prompt- 
ly Julius Caesar. His daughter Sophie 
said, "Why father you might have known 
a republican would prefer Julius Cae- 
sar." "But," I rejoined, "that has little 
to do with the matter" — "my father's 
grandmother was a Quakeress, one Ann 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA IQI 

Whittier." ''The strict Quakers do not 
sanction the reading of fiction — my 
father did not allow any of his children 
to read fiction, but we were permitted to 
read Shakespeare. It was mere chance 
that led me to tackle Julius Caesar, and 
I knew it by heart before beginning any 
other play." "But Sophie, since you take 
the matter so seriously I must revise my 
statement and say that of four of Shake- 
speare's greatest dramas, the one I think 
most highly of, is always the one I read 
last, and Julius Caesar is not one of the 
four." 

One often heard the apothegm among 
German students of English literature, 
"Es gibt nur ein Shakespeare; nur ein 
Milton." (There is but one Shakespeare, 
but one Milton — and there was a course 
of lectures on Milton accompanied by 
readings given at that time in the city.) 

We knew a family in Heidelberg 
named Roeder; it consisted of two young 
women and a brother, Doctor Roeder; the 



192 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

latter was an oculist; he had married an 
English girl and had two or three chil- 
dren. Dr. Roeder had quite an extensive 
practice, and a beautiful home. In the 
early spring of 1872 he was bidden by the 
Kaiser to go to Strasbourg in order to 
assist in making Strasbourg into a Ger- 
man city. This command caused much 
talk but nothing derogatory to the Kaiser, 
who had the love and adoration of his 
subjects. Nothing was said of the great 
sacrifice of giving up a lucrative practice 
and going where he had to begin life 
anew, except that it was his duty which 
must be done. Among my Heidelberg 
friends there were a few who, like my- 
self, preferred the writings of Schiller * 
to those of Goethe, Professor Delfifs being 
one of them. Schiller had poor health 
and died at the age of 46 whilst Goethe 



* Schill€r*s translation of Macbeth into German is a 
masterpiece and ranks with Lascelle Wroxall's translation 
of Les Miserables into English; both are the works of 
genius. 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 193 

lived 83 years. He nursed and fostered 
his talents, never allowing anything to 
interfere with the development of his 
poetic gifts. Too selfish to marry, he 
cultivated and courted the society of dis- 
tinguished people; yet he raised a small 
family of illegitimate children, and when 
near his end he married the woman and 
adopted the children. The German peo- 
ple have shown themselves able and will- 
ing to separate a man's literary work from 
his private life. Goethe was physically 
magnificent, and but for this blemish he 
might have shared with Sir Walter Scott, 
the compliment which Prescott, the his- 
torian, paid to Sir Walter; he wrote, 'I 
know of no instance in ancient or modern 
times of such moral, intellectual and 
physical perfection combined in one 
man." 

The beauty, the serenity, the pathos of 
the closing years of Goethe's life, includ- 
ing the death bed scene, reached the 
height of the sublime. He had outlived 



194 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

his wife, his only son and nearly all the 
friends whom he had greatly loved. The 
homage of the world was at his feet. 
Messages of love and admiration had 
come to him from the learned, the great 
and the good of other lands; from Car- 
lyle, Sir Walter Scott and the youthful 
Victor Hugo ; to say nothing of the adora- 
tion in which he was held by his towns- 
people who had known him so long. 

In August, 1 83 1, seven months before 
his death, he invited the revenue official, 
Herr Mahr, to drive with him to the hill 
called the Gickelhahn. There, nearly 
fifty years before he had written the great 
poem, Ilmenau, addressed to Karl Au- 
gust. Here too, and at the same time, he 
had penciled the verses Nachtlied, on the 
wall of the wooden hut on the Summit. 
When the carriage which bore Mahr and 
Goethe had gone as far as possible, they 
alighted to climb the rest of the way on 
foot. Goethe gazed on the beautiful pros- 
pect with mingled delight and sadness. 



ITALY AND AUSTRIA 195 

"Ah," he cried, "would that my good 
Grand Duke Karl August could have 
seen this loveliness once more!" Then 
he hurried up the steep ascent with 
youthful eagerness, nor would he accept 
any aid from his companion. When he 
stood before the inscription penciled on 
the wall — 

Ueber alien Gipfeln 

1st Ruh, 

In alien Wipfeln 

Spiirest du 

Kaum einen Hauch; 

Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde. 

Warte nur, balde 

Ruhest du auch — 

tears flowed down his face. Slowly he 
drew his handkerchief from his pocket, 
dried his tears and said in a gentle melan- 
choly voice, "Ja, warte nur, balde ruhest 
du auch," (Yes, wait only, thou too shalt 
rest) — was silent a moment, looked out 
through the window at the dark pine 
wood and then turned to Mahr, saying, 
"Now we will go down." Up to within 



196 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

a few months of his death, he toiled to 
finish Faust; when completed he said the 
rest of life would be a free gift, whether 
he worked or did nothing it would be the 
same.* 



* Here are two quite opposite views of Goethe but 
both perhaps based on fact: one the opinion of the writer 
in early life, the other after passing the four score notch. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

GENERAL COMMENTS 



T 



HE treatment accorded to Lord 
Byron by his English contemporaries pre- 
sents a striking contrast to that given 
Goethe by Germany and is a blot on the 
English escutcheon. No allowance was 
made for faults inherited or for his 
mother's reprehensible treatment of him 
as a child. He was dissipated in his early 
manhood. Realizing the shame of it, he 
attempted reform by marriage, which, of 
course, was a failure. Then gossip took 
charge of him, exaggerating and trumpet- 
ing every misdemeanor. He wrote, if 
one-half of it were true, he was not lit to 
live in England, and if untrue, England 
was no place for him — and he left Eng- 
land never to return. His intellectual 
gifts were only less amazing than those of 
197 



198 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Shakespeare. He was master of elo- 
quence, pathos and despair. After writing 
Beppo he discovered himself to be a 
humorist. He wrote much that was evi- 
dence of deep spiritual feeling. What 
writer has given to the world anything 
comparable to the "Hebrew Melodies"? 
— which he threw off to please a friend — 
a music composer — Isaac Nathan? Don 
Juan is his masterpiece! He went to 
Greece to aid the Greeks in throwing ofl[ 
Turkish oppression. He found there a 
chaos of jealousy among contending 
chiefs. In three months he brought order 
out of confusion showing he possessed 
power of military organization. At the 
end of his short 36 years life he was just 
finding his chief strength, which lay in 
wit, and the direct representation of real 
life. Dying of a fever at Missilonghi his 
remains were taken to England. The 
Dean of Westminster refused burial in 
the Abbey. There is neither bust nor 
statue in the Poets' Corner to the memory 



GENERAL COMMENTS 199 

of him who "possessed the greatest talent 
of the 19th century" according to 
Goethe.* His name and writings exer- 
cised a marvelous influence over his con- 
temporaries outside of England. His re- 
mains rest in a little church, Hucknall 
Tarkard, near Newstead Abbey. 

Notwithstanding the writer's strictures 
on the English people's treatment of Lord 
Byron, the fault leaned to virtue's side; 
it was a protest against marital infidelity, 
and is offset by many virtues which we 
may do well to imitate. 

It was about one hundred years ago 
that the English people began going to 
Nice, France, in great numbers to escape 
the damp cold winters of England. The 
street extending along the shore of the 

*The writer, when in Greece, went and spent Sunday 
in Missilonghi; she saw the little marble statue to Byron, 
and a few feet away from it a square pile of stones to 
the memory of Marco Bozzaris, the Leonidas of modern 
Greece. That pile of rude stones moved her more deeply 
than did the splendid mausoleum to Napoleon under the 
gilded dome of the Hotel des Invalides, which the French 
people show with so much veneration. 



200 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Mediterranean was paved with big cob- 
blestones, had no sidewalk on either side, 
though lined with hotels, pensions and 
villas facing the South. The town was 
infested with beggars. If one took a walk 
to get the sun and air he was followed and 
pestered by these graceless creatures most 
of whom were not needy. The English 
people bore this nuisance for a while and 
then called a meeting of their country- 
men: they raised a sum of money: went 
to the municipality and suggested the 
employment of these beggars to build a 
sidewalk, recommending that they be 
well paid. The result was a splendid 
walk. It is now three miles long and 84 
feet wide appropriately named '^The 
Promenade des Anglais." 

England discerned, recognized and 
made use of the great good qualities of 
her Jewish subjects as no other country 
has done. One does not often meet an 
English Jew in the United States but 



GENERAL COMMENTS 20I 

when one does he finds himself in the 
presence of a superior individual. Just 
and magnanimous treatment produces 
like results, and the moral, intellectual 
and social conditions of some of the Jews 
in our great crowded cities is a true index 
to the character of the oppression in other 
lands, which has made them what they 
are. The writer spent a couple of days 
in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, when 
on her way to Vienna from Berlin in 
1862. She chanced to see the Jewish 
quarters which were being demolished. 
The sight of these dungeons where human 
beings were compelled to live during the 
night time made such a horrible impres- 
sion on her mind that it blotted out every- 
thing else. She knows that Prague had a 
population of about 170,000, it must have 
had fine and stately buildings but it is 
futile to try to recall anything. She sees 
nothing but that pile of stone and mortar, 
the thick walls of a dungeon, as vivid as 
if it w^ere yesterday. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE WINNING OF THE WAR 



V 



ICE ADMIRAL W. S. SIMS in 
Chicago Commerce, a weekly publica- 
tion, tells a thrilling story of our sailors' 
part in the winning of the war. He said, 
^'I arrived on the other side April loth, 
1917, four days after war was declared. 
Three days later I sent a dispatch to the 
United States Navy Department, in 
which I stated explicitly, that after an ex- 
amination of the condition of affairs over 
there, which was not known in our coun- 
try, not even in governmental circles, the 
central powers are winning the war, and 
that the means to stop them was not 
known. They were then destroying from 
seven to eight hundred thousand tons of 
shipping a month. There was a certain 
202 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 203 

number of millions of tons required for 
the absolute necessities of the European 
powers and their population and the 
armies on the Western front and on the 
Mediterranean. It was a very simple 
matter to subtract that from the total 
amount of tonnage available, and divide it 
by seven hundred thousand to see how 
many months you could go." The Cen- 
tral powers were satisfied they had the 
war well in hand. In the Summer of 
1917 every German submarine officer that 
we captured was quite bumptious, and 
confidently asserted ^'you will have to 
give up by October or November, of this 
year." The calculation was just and we 
knew it. Great Britain knew it. We were 
able to reverse that situation, and decrease 
the destruction of the merchant shipping 
below the building point, taking into ac- 
count the building on this side and on 
the other. When we did that Germany 
knew she had lost the war. The reasons 
we were able to turn down the submarine, 



204 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

were the instituting of three means, first 
— the convoy system, second — the intro- 
duction of the depth charge, third, the 
hydrophones or listening devices. It is 
gratifying to note that notwithstanding 
England's peril in these exciting times, 
she never condescended to retaliate in 
kind the cruel piratical acts of Germany; 
but, instead the British Admiralty kept a 
list of the names of the commanding of- 
ficers of about 150 German submarines. 
It is a most interesting study to note how 
soon retribution followed transgression. 
Captain Paul Wagenfukr who sank the 
steamer Belgian Prince and drowned the 
crew of 40 whom he ordered to line up 
on her deck just before she went down: 
his submarine U-44 was sunk with all on 
board only a fortnight later. The Cap- 
tain of the U-20 who torpedoed the Lusi- 
tania met his fate September, 1917. 
There are a few who escaped by finding 
refuge in shore appointments but the 
Admiralty has their names and their end 
we may never know. 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 205 

RETRIBUTION 

The writer has been warned by one 
possessing wisdom based on experience, 
from attempting to put into permanent 
form comments on present day questions, 
"since the rays of public opinion and the 
gradual changing of history throw a dif- 
ferent color upon these mountain peaks 
of human interest from day to day.'' But, 
both the reader and the writer must wait 
until authentic history has determined 
which was the mirage, and which the 
solid mountain range; meanwhile as the 
people and our Congress are so much 
concerned over the Shantung incident, 
the writer ventures to give the substance 
of an article in a recent number of the 
Christian Science Monitor, published in 
Boston. 

"It is scarcely necessary to recite again 
the nature of the extraordinary surrender 
of the allied governments to Japan in the 
Paris Conference. It will suffice to say 
that, in spite of repeated declarations in 



206 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

favor of self-determination, a province, 
inhabited by some forty millions of peo- 
ple, has had its future determined for it 
by five aliens in a French council cham- 
ber. Now^ not only wsls this an unspeak- 
able breach of the idea of self-determina- 
tion, it w^as something even v^orse, for it 
was a decision to take the destinies of 
these forty millions of people out of the 
hands of their ow^n national government, 
and to hand them over to the mercy of a 
foreign government which, up to the time 
of the signing of the treaty, had had no 
claim upon them at all. 

"Now who were the gentlemen who 
made this decision. They were really 
the Prime Minister of the United King- 
dom, the Prime Minister of France, and 
the President of the United States. And 
this is all the more remarkable when at- 
tention is given to the record of the Jap- 
anese Government in dealing with these 
three powers. To understand this, it is 
necessary to know how the secret treaties 
between Japan, on the one side, and 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 207 

France and the United Kingdom on the 
other side, were obtained. During the 
course of Germany's submarine warfare 
there came a moment when it seemed to 
the Admiralties in London and Paris that 
the percentage of losses was so severe 
that, unless some means could be found of 
lessening them, the war would be lost, 
owing to the destruction of food supplies 
and war material. In these circum- 
stances the British and French Admiral- 
ties applied to the Admiralty in Tokyo 
for naval assistance. At this moment 
Japan was an ally of the two appealing 
governments. Moreover, she was the 
ally who had suffered least of all in the 
waging of the war. France and the 
United Kingdom had put their last coin 
and their last ship, so to speak, into the 
struggle, and they now appealed to 
Japan, not to do the same thing at all, but 
merely to send ships into the Mediterra- 
nean in order to help to prevent the loss 
of the war in which thev were all allies. 



208 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Japan's reply was simplicity itself. It 
was to present the terms of the Shantung 
secret treaties as the price of her acquies- 
cence. France and the United Kingdom 
believed that they were unable tu resist 
the demand. Whether they were or not 
is, so far as the Shantung question is con- 
cerned, immaterial. They accepted the 
terms, and the bond was signed. 

"This was before the United States 
came into the war. When the United 
States did join the Allies, the United 
States sent a similar request to Japan for 
the assistance of cruisers. Japan declined 
to send these, and send them she never 
did. In the meantime, however, the sea- 
men of the allied nations had proved 
equal to the task set them. Admiral Sims' 
proposal of the convoy system had been 
agreed to, and the world hardly yet 
grasps what it owes to Admiral Sims for 
convincing not only the British Admiral- 
ty, but the British mercantile marine, 
that it was possible to effect something 
which stereotyped training had induced 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 209 

both parties to the agreement, to regard 
as almost impractical. In addition to this 
the depth bomb had been invented, and 
so in spite of the recalcitrancy of Japan 
the war was won." 

The war won, the representatives of 
the various nations arrived at Paris with 
their treaties in their pockets. Japan pro- 
duced her secret treaties, with France and 
the United Kingdom, and demanded pay- 
ment. It has been held that a treaty, no 
matter how gained, is a sacred undertak- 
ing, and that the allied nations could not 
break their treaties with Japan, without 
subjecting themselves to the scorn of the 
world. 

It is an interesting fact that China, in 
a secret treaty with Germany, had 
granted her certain concessions in Shan- 
tung, but that treaty expressly declared 
that the Chinese concessions in Shantung 
were nontransferable to any other na- 
tion. Later Germany in a secret treaty 
with Japan transferred to Japan her con- 
cessions in Shantung. In this contro- 



210 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

versy much has been made of the fact that 
Japan has promised to return to China 
her sovereign rights in Shantung, but 
those sovereign rights were never trans- 
ferred from China to Germany and there- 
fore never could have been transferred 
from Germany to Japan. How Japan ever 
succeeded in gaining her ends in dealing 
with the allied ministers is one of the 
mysteries of diplomacy. France and the 
United Kingdom may feel themselves 
bound by those treaties obtained from 
them during the war. But the Senate of 
the United States is under no such obliga- 
tion.* 



* The writer has given in the above the gist of an edi- 
torial in a great journal which has a large circulation. 
She has given it as one point of view. She withholds her 
own private opinion for want of knowledge on the sub- 
ject of China and her treatment of Shantung. Before 
venturing an opinion several questions must be an- 
swered — viz.: What was the nature of those concessions 
in Shantung? Why were the concessions made to Ger- 
many, the most autocratic power of Christendom, and 
made with the express stipulation that they were non- 
transferable ? 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 211 

Fortunately China has many friends 
who are not seeking concessions, and are 
not asking the privilege of building for 
them railroads to be managed and run for 
their own selfish gains. Different de- 
nominations of Christian educators have 
dreamed for decades of dominating the 
educational movement in New China; 
but it was not until China had rid herself 
of the old autocratic Manchu dynasty, 
which had lasted three hundred and sixty- 
nine years, that it became apparent that if 
anything worth while was to be accom- 
plished there, these various church or- 
ganizations would have to drop their re- 
stricted denominational efforts, pool 
their resources and work together in a 
few big, united enterprises. The Uni- 
versity of Nanking is the first result of 
their labors. Nanking, with its more 
than six hundred thousand inhabitants, 
has been for years the educational center 
of China. And this school was organized 
by Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists 



212 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

and Disciples. All are Americans and 
the University is a distinctively American 
enterprise. Diplomas are granted by the 
regents of the University of the State of 
New York. The faculty consists of 
twenty-five foreigners and eighty-five 
Chinese. The success of the University 
has been its greatest embarrassment. It 
has been impossible to provide teachers 
or dormitories or laboratory-equipment 
enough to care for all who have sought 
admission. Tuition charges have been in- 
creased, the number of scholarships 
strictly limited, entrance requirements 
raised and raised again, and still it is 
necessary to turn students away each year. 
It remained for a Nanking professor 
to make a simple suggestion whereby one 
of the Spring festivals of China was 
transformed from a day upon which 
bushes and small trees were cut down to 
place upon ancestral graves to a day 
when trees were planted in memory of 
the departed. The absence of trees has 



THE WINNING OF THE WAR 213 

been one of the contributing causes of 
the floods that have carried death and 
destruction throughout the country. 
China now has an Arbor day — a holiday 
that is obtaining increasing recognition 
throughout the nation. Through the en- 
terprising activity of members of the fac- 
ulty experts have been called in and they 
have found the exact silk worm which 
can spin the most and best silk. Chinese 
silk is the best in the world, but the quan- 
tity is quite insignificant from the fact 
that the silk culture in China has de- 
clined in late years while that of Japan 
has greatly increased. Although the 
University of Nanking is less than ten 
years old, its accomplishments are too 
vast to be noted in this little abstract; it 
suffices to say that agriculture and for- 
estry are given much attention, and the 
work of reforestation of China is on foot, 
which will tend to correct climatic trou- 
bles. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
has cooperated through the Board of 



214 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Foreign Missions with the result that 
the Centenary has contributed over 
$400,000 for different purposes to that 
institution. But the one great fact which 
cannot be overlooked is that Christian 
churches of different names and creeds 
can unite in one single enterprise! It 
is, perhaps, the history of this one insti- 
tution which led the Protestant organ- 
izations of the United States to hope 
that the Church of Rome might see fit 
to cooperate in great philanthropic en- 
terprises. This account of the Nanking 
University is a summary of an article in 
a very recent number of the North West- 
ern Christian Advocate from the pen of 
Paul Hutchinson entitled "Putting a 
College on the Chinese Map." 

There seems to be a great wave of 
crime and lawlessness throughout the 
civilized world and the Protestant 
churches of the United States conceived 
the idea that a combination of all chris- 
tian churches throughout the world 






THE WINNING OF THE WAR 215 

might do much to check the advance of 
this wave, and perhaps destroy it alto- 
gether. So, several of the greatest repre- 
sentatives of these protestant organiza- 
tions were delegated to go to Rome, see 
the present Pope, and lay before him the 
proposition to unite with this body for 
that aim. Pope Benedict XV received 
them very graciously and said in sub- 
stance, that he represented Almighty God 
as Vicar of Christ through his one apostle 
Saint Peter, and when the other churches 
wished to return their allegiance to him 
he would gladly welcome them. 

A PARABLE 

A man fell into a mill pond. The By- 
standers not wishing to wet their clothes 
unnecessarily called to him and asked 
him if he could swim. When he had 
blown the water from his nostrils and 
could speak he replied, "No, but I have 
a brother who can play the violin." 



CHAPTER XX 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 



T 



HE Monroe Doctrine as announced by 
President Monroe in December 1823 was 
the invention of George Canning, the 
great English statesman who was at that 
time the British minister of foreign af- 
fairs. The idea was suggested by Can- 
ning to Richard Rush, our then minister 
to England, and by him communicated to 
our President. At that time the Spanish 
colonies in America were in revolt 
against the mother country and the 
United States had recognized their inde- 
pendence. The Holy Alliance formed by 
France, Russia, Austria and Prussia was 
assisting Spain to put down the revolution 
at home, and was proposing after that to 
aid in reducing her colonies in South 
216 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 217 

America to subjection. It was at this 
moment that Canning proposed to Rush 
that England and the United States join 
in a declaration, that while neither power 
desired the colonies of Spain for itself, 
they could not look with indifference on 
European intervention in South Amer- 
ican affairs or see those countries acquired 
by a third power. 

When Monroe received the proposi- 
tion from Rush he submitted it at once 
to Madison and Jefferson and both ap- 
proved of it. Upon their encouragement 
and advice, Monroe embodied the prin- 
ciple in his next message to Congress. 
Great Britain did not join in the declara- 
tion though the whole British press 
heartily approved Monroe's message. 
Three years later Canning in addressing 
the House of Commons reviewing his 
course, boasted that he had called the 
New World into existence to redress the 
balance of the old. 

If a League of Nations is perfected in 



21 8 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

a way to have all questions settled by a 
board of arbitration and the smallest 
power is free to determine its government 
or to whom it will owe any allegience, the 
Monroe Doctrine would seem to be as 
superfluous as a law to regulate the rela- 
tions of the planets to each other. 



CHAPTER XXI 
general comments 

woman's work 

PROF. JAMES BRYCE'S TRIBUTE TO 
AMERICAN WOMEN 

J AMES BRYCE, the British publicist 
and author of ^'The American Common- 
wealth," wrote, "No country seems to owe 
so much to its women as America — to owe 
to them so much of what is best in its 
social institutions and the beliefs that 
govern conduct." A grand compliment 
from one who made a special study of the 
subject with a view of writing upon it: 
but it was written before the great war. 
Now that our women of all classes have 
shown what they can do in a severe crisis 
such as we have passed through, how 
219 



220 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

much more might be written by an able 
author such as Bryce. Your humble 
writer having neither training nor gifts 
can but outline what she hopes and prays 
for. 

Our women during the seventy-one 
years of patient struggle for enfranchise- 
ment have developed a power of political 
organization, an eloquence, an ability to 
reason logically and to arrive at just con- 
clusions such as able men might envy. 
The enfranchisement of all the women 
of the United States is now in sight, 
though there is still much work to be 
done. The skill acquired by these women 
is the result of opposition : the enemies of 
the cause having thus unwittingly con- 
tributed to its success. It is not likely 
that these acquirements will be allowed 
to rust for want of use. We have caught 
a glimpse of danger ahead in our war 
experiences, namely, the illiteracy and 
indifference of some of our foreign popu- 
lation, which is a menace to self-govern- 



GENERAL COMMENTS 221 



ment. Those women who have done so 
much to improve the laws in those states 
where they have had a vote will now, it 
is to be hoped, turn to the task of making 
intelligent citizens of illiteracy. 

"The United States is the melting pot 
of the world. We learn that sixty nation- 
alities are represented in our schools, yet 
every child from whatever clime he or 
his forebears hail, will, when grown up, 
be a unit in a nation which derives its 
language, its laws, its political genius 
and its democratic ideals from England, 
and it is a disservice to him and to our 
country to teach him falsely that England 
has in any large way been other than a 
true mother to us." 

The editors of Italian newspapers in 
the United States have had in the past a 
peculiarly difficult task because they have 
not had an eager, well informed list of 
subscribers waiting for their news. In 
this regard they are somewhat less fortu- 



222 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

nate than the publishers of modem Greek 
papers. But the Italians are making 
marvelous progress both here and in 
Italy. We can but say may God speed 
them! 

The present king of Italy, Victor Em- 
manuel III, in his manners and tastes is 
very democratic. He is exceedingly 
popular with all classes not excepting 
even the Socialists and that small party 
of Republicans who have never ceased to 
regret that Italy is not a republic. 

THE HONORABLE CLARKE E. CARR'S TRIB- 
UTE TO THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

The Honorable Clarke E. Carr, re- 
cently deceased, wrote a great book en- 
titled ^^Illini," which reached eight or 
nine editions; in it he called one chapter 
"The Nursery of Great Men," meaning 
the State of Illinois: in that chapter he 
gave less than a dozen names, six of whom 
became Uni<-ed States senators, one the 



GENERAL COMMENTS 223 

Governor of Illinois, one our ambassa- 
dor to England, after occupying the first 
position in the cabinet of his government, 
one became the secretary and confidential 
advisor of Lincoln, and two of them later 
his biographers. All these men were 
familiarly known to each other, to Carr 
and to their neighbors, and a few of them 
to the writer. In ^'lUini'' Carr empha- 
sized the fact that Illinois gave to the 
Federal Government, in war time. Grant, 
Lincoln, Logan and Douglas. A grand 
quartet! Except General Grant the 
writer knew the others well, in so far as 
a young person with an ordinary not yet 
mature intellect, is capable of compre- 
hending great minds, and she heard sev- 
eral of the speeches of Lincoln and 
Douglas, which is now but a precious 
memory. With justice and great propri- 
ety Mr. Carr might have added to that 
famous four one other name, that of Mrs. 
John A. Logan: the hardships, the priva- 
tions she voluntarily endured, her hero- 



224 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

ism and devotion to the union cause 
during the perilous days of the civil war 
can never be repaid. If any woman in 
the United States ever deserved a monu- 
ment, that woman is Mary S. Logan. 
She is still living, having outlived her 
famous husband forty-three years. 

After an acquaintance of fifty years, a 
part of which is covered by correspond- 
ence, the writer is proud to own the great- 
est admiration and love for Mrs. Logan. 
To the writer she has been a model and 
an inspiration, without which this poor 
tribute to the maimed or blinded soldiers 
and sailors of Italy might never have 
been written. 

For years before the civil war the 
southern part of Illinois was called Egypt 
— because of its proslavery principles. 
Of the famous four Logan was the only 
one born in Illinois and he came from 
that part of the state. In 1861 he was a 
congressman, having been elected as a 
Douglas democrat from his district. The 



GENERAL COMMENTS 225 

northern democrats in Congress were 
greatly alarmed at the acts of the seces- 
sionists and sent Henry May, a congress- 
man from Maryland to Richmond to 
obtain from the confederate leaders the 
terms upon which they would agree that 
the revolted states would resume their 
places in the Union. Mr. May had just 
returned from his mission and had given 
the report. It was, ^'Go back and tell 
your friends that if Mr. Lincoln had sent 
to us by your hand a blank sheet of paper 
with his signature at the bottom and a 
request that we write above it the terms 
and conditions on which we would return 
to the Union, all we would write above 
it would be 'Unconditional Separation.' " 
Logan, one of the few who knew what 
war was, having been a soldier in the 
Mexican War, was tremendously ex- 
cited. He sought and found Henry W. 
Blodgett a distinguished jurist of Chi- 
cago, then in Washington. He told him 
of May's mission and the reply from the 



226 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

confederate leaders. He said to him, 
"Blodgett, war — a long bloody war — is 
inevitable. * * * I want you to go with 
me to the White House, where I intend 
to tender my services to Mr. Lincoln, to 
raise a regiment in my district and go 
into the field." It was Sunday, when, as 
a rule, no visitors are admitted to the 
White House. They went into the garden 
in the rear of the Presidential mansion, 
hoping they might see some acquaintance 
who could aid them in their effort to 
present themselves. By chance Lincoln 
was sitting in a window. He called to 
them and sent a servant to show them in. 
Logan told his errand and asked leave 
to raise a regiment. Lincoln thanked 
him cordially but told him he could do 
his country better service, for the next 
few weeks, by keeping his place in Con- 
gress and giving his support to such legis- 
lation as was needed to put the nation 
on a war footing, at the same time he 
assured Logan he should have authority 



GENERAL COMMENTS 227 

to raise a regiment as soon as he could be 
spared from Congress. Logan followed 
Lincoln's advice — raised that regiment, 
made stirring speeches in Southern Illi- 
nois, saved ''Egypt" to the Union cause, 
then there followed in orderly sequence 
Belmont, Donaldson, Corinth, Vicks- 
burg, Atlanta, battles which will forever 
link his name with immortality. 

This incident in the life of General 
Logan, not so well known to the people 
of the present day as it should be, is men- 
tioned mainly to show how the sentiments 
of a community may change swayed by 
the influence and example of leading 
minds. Our soldiers from the 48 states 
have fought in France, Belgium, Russia 
and Italy, as one man : with no thought of 
dissension. Is there a doubt of the loy- 
alty* of the states that once seceded? 

♦Louis Kossuth, the distinguished Hungarian patriot, 
statesman and orator, visited the United States in Decem- 
ber, 1851. His avowed object was to invoke the sym- 
pathy and aid, if possible, of our people in liberating his 
country from Austrian oppression. He had just emerged 



228 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Not one of the 48 is gladder than they 
to be an integral part of the Great Re- 
public! 

Let us review the past and see what 
has happened within the memory of the 
writer. There were millions of people 
in the United States — nearly all of those 
of the South and some of those in the 
Northern states, who held that it was 
right to take black people from Africa, 

from a three years' stay in an Austrian prison, set free 
through the intervention of England and the United 
States. He visited England where the people were lavish 
in ovations, but it was to our country, "the land of the 
free and the home of the brave," that he turned with 
high hopes for real succor. Great was his disappointment 
and chagrin to find that in the slave-states he could not 
speak of liberty and freedom. He stayed here but six 
months and was received with much enthusiasm in the 
North. He was a wonderful orator; eloquent in several 
languages. Before his return home he visited Mount 
Vernon and the tomb of Washington. Much moved by 
the sublime simplicity of the sarcophagus containing the 
remains of the "Father of his country," he exclaimed, 
"How necessary it is to be successful." He died in exile 
in Turin, Italy, at the age of 92. But his son Francis 
became a leader of the liberal party in the Hungarian 
Diet. Thus is the torch of freedom handed down from 
generation to generation. 



GENERAL COMMENTS 229 

bring them here, enslave them, make 
them work for nothing except their food 
and clothes, and if they escaped, chase 
them with blood-hounds ; the sole excuse 
for this act was the compensation of an 
opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ! 
Yet that excuse was not even plausible. 
There was a law forbidding the teaching 
of a slave to read : so if a slave was to get 
at God's word he must get it surrepti- 
tiously! 

The sacrifice of thousands upon thou- 
sands of precious lives during our civil 
war, revolutionized the sentiments of the 
friends of human slavery; enabled them 
to see straight. Is it absurd to expect that 
the damnable acts of the autocratic cen- 
tral powers may end in similarly benefi- 
cent results? May the reader review the 
changes that have taken place in the last 
58 years in public opinion right here in 
our midst, and say if it is either visionary 
or chimerical to expect that a League of 
Nations may be formed that will settle 



230 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

differences without war? But for that 
happy time we must wait patiently a little 
while, till passion and prejudice so rife 
now are all allayed and the sentiments of 
the civilized world shall be ruled by the 
"spirits of just men made perfect." 

President Wilson's firm attitude rela- 
tive to the disposition of Fiume, shows 
conclusively that, though a writer of his- 
tory he has failed to comprehend the past 
and present history of Italy, its true rec- 
ord in the late war, its present condition, 
just claims and just rights. And King 
Victor Emmanuel IITs present to him 
when in Rome of Mazzini's complete 
works seemed a broad hint pointing in the 
direction of a need. Whilst the author 
has no doubt as to President Wilson's 
good intentions there are certain facts 
that must not be overlooked. Lieutenant 
Bruno Roselli speaking in Chicago set 
forth these facts: 

"At the time when Von Kluck was 
sweeping down on Paris in August 1914, 



GENERAL COMMENTS 23 1 

France felt that she had to hold 500,000 
of her troops on her Italian frontier. She 
did this because Italy was then- a member 
of the triple alliance and no one knew 
whether she might not be forced into the 
war on the side of Germany. In this 
crucial moment of the world's history, 
Italy said to France: We have had our 
little quarrels in the past, but today, when 
freedom is at stake, all that is forgotten. 
You can trust Italy. Take your men to 
the Marne.' They were taken to the 
Marne and they saved the day for all the 
world. 

^'When the German armies were 
sweeping Serbia in their awful wave of 
destruction, Italy told the Serbs — her 
rival now in Jugo Slavia — that while she 
could not save their country, she could 
and would save its people. So she gath- 
ered at the ^heeP of the Italian peninsula 
every transport, merchant vessel, fishing 
smack, ferry boat and ship that she had. 
And with these she ferried across to her 



232 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

own shores 200,000 Serbs who had been 
swept down to the Albanian coast with- 
out food, clothes, medicine or shelter." 

'These were great acts. They were 
great not as aggressive acts of fighting, 
but as deeds of generosity and magnanim- 
ity. They should make us inclined to 
have greater trust in the nation to whose 
everlasting credit they stand." 

''Italy is not asking all of the Eastern 
coast of the Adriatic — only 90 miles of 
it, while she grants to the Jugo-Slavs 459 
miles. The past record of the treachery 
of the Jugo-Slavs, a part of the Austrian- 
German armies up to the armistice, mak- 
ing it necessary that Italy have this much 
of a guarantee that her unprotected east- 
ern coast shall not be open to attack." 



CHAPTER XXII 

CONCLUSION 

FOUR ITALIAN HEROES ACHIEVED THE 
UNIFICATION OF ITALY — GIUSEPPI MAZ- 
ZINI — VITTORIO EMMANUELLI, II. — 
COUNT CAMILLO CAVOUR — GIUSEPPI 
GARIBALDI. 



N 



OTWITHSTANDING the long 
years of Austrian domination with its be- 
numbing effect on the populace, Italy has 
been most fortunate in having courageous, 
enlightened, far-seeing rulers; from the 
first King Victor Emmanuel II, down 
through the reign of her present King 
Victor Emmanuel III. 

Space does not permit a record of the 
work accomplished in the direction of 
popular education — it is, however, sim- 
ply magnificent ! But Italy's greatest lack 
is means to carry through her broad aims 

233 



234 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

and high aspirations. We in the United 
States have had a taste of the cost of war 
from excessive taxations; how much 
harder for the little kingdom of Italy, 
with a larger army and but one-third of 
our population, to say nothing of the rela- 
tive wealth and resources of the two coun- 
tries, yet the spirit of the great Genoese 
Navigator still survives and is manifest in 
the explorations in the arctic regions by 
the Duke of the Abruzzi and also Mar- 
coni's great contribution in the applica- 
tion of a new science — wireless teleg- 
raphy. 

Last but not least the unification of 
Italy, the most dramatic and informing 
epic of modern times ; unlike the ancient 
model of an epic, with one principal 
character about which is woven in stately 
measure thrilling deeds of valor, Italy 
gives us four heroes, Victor Emmanuel 
II, Count Camillo Cavour, Mazzini and 
Garibaldi. Prince Metternich, the pre- 
mier of Austria, in speaking of Count 
Cavour said, "There is but one statesman 



CONCLUSION 235 



in Europe and he is against us." There 
is little doubt that the life of Count Ca- 
millo Cavour was shortened by his 
strenuous effort to establish a "free 
church in a free state." The King of 
Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, has re- 
cently shown his high appreciation of 
Mazzini, by making President Wilson, 
when in Rome, a present of Mazzini's 
complete works. Mazzini persisted in 
refusing to write his biography— giving 
as his excuse— the unwillingness to live 
over again a life of great anxiety and 
little happiness. If anyone has misgiv- 
ings as to the esteem in which Garibaldi 
is held by Italy, let him go to Rome, 
ascend the Gianicolo, and contemplate, 
with uncovered head, the magnificent 
equestrian statue, "To the hero of two 
worlds." 

Victor Emmanuel II had married in 
his youth his first cousin Maria Adelaide, 
daughter of Giuseppi Rannieri, Arch- 
duke of Austria and Austrian viceroy of 
Lombardo-Vineto from 18 18 to 1848. 



236 ITALY AND AUSTRIA 

Beginning his reign on the gloomy battle- 
field of Novara in 1849 he spent twenty- 
one years in a most strenuous effort to rid 
Italy of Austrian oppression. Finally 
when in 1861 he opened his new Parlia- 
ment representing all of Italy excepting 
Venice and Rome, the new census re- 
vealed the appalling fact that of a popu- 
lation of 22,000,000, 17,000,000 could 
neither read nor write, whilst brigandage 
incited and encouraged by royalists, pre- 
vailed to a frightful extent. A man of 
less courage or less ability would have 
failed in the task of political organiza- 
tion, complicated as it was by great 
diversity of economic, cultural and social 
conditions between the North and the 
South: the latter deficient in the elements 
essential for self-government. When his 
end at last came he could truthfully say 
what Saint Paul wrote to Timothy from 
Rome when the hour of his martyrdom 
was near, "I have fought a good fight: I 
have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith." 



APPENDIX * 
LINCOLN'S SECOND TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS 



o 



N this his second visit, Lincoln for 
the first time observed slavery in its most 
brutal and revolting form. New Orleans 
was a slave mart, and his companion! 
reports that Lincoln then witnessed for 
the first time the spectacle of the chaining 
together and whipping of slaves. He saw 
families sold, the separation forever of 
husband and wife, of parent and child. 
When we recall how deeply he always 
sympathized with suffering, brute as well 
as human, and his strong love of justice, 

* The writer found that the life of Abraham Lincoln 
written by the Honorable Isaac N. Arnold was not pub- 
lished till after Senator Arnold's death. That the Hon- 
orable E. B. Washburn, our Ambassador to France, who 
rendered such distinguished service during the commune, 
wrote the introduction to the book. It is now out of print, 
so it was deemed best to copy the page mentioned. 

t John Hanks. 

237 



238 APPENDIX 

we can realize how deeply he was af- 
fected by these things. His companions 
on this trip to New Orleans have at- 
tempted to describe his indignation and 
grief. They said, "his heart bled," * * * 
"he was mad, thoughtful, abstracted, sad 
and depressed." 

Lincoln often declared to his intimate 
friends that he was from boyhood super- 
stitious. He said that the near approach 
of the important events in his life were 
indicated by a presentiment or a strange 
dream, or in some other mysterious way 
it was impressed upon him that some- 
thing important was to occur. There is a 
tradition that on this visit to New Or- 
leans he and his companion, John Hanks, 
visited an old fortune teller, a Voudou 
negress. Tradition says that during the 
interview she became very much excited, 
and after various predictions exclaimed: 
"You will be President, and all the 
negroes will be free." That the old Vou- 
dou negress should have foretold that the 



APPENDIX 239 

visitor would be President is not at all in- 
credible. She doubtless told this to many 
aspiring lads, but the prophecy of the 
freedom of the slaves requires confirma- 
tion.* 



*The author wrote to William H. Herndon, the part- 
ner of the President, inquiring if he had heard of the 
tradition referred to in the text. In the reply, dated Octo- 
ber 21, 1882, Herndon said: "It seems to me just no<w that 
I once heard of the fortune-telling story, but cannot state 
when I heard it, nor from whom I got it. It seems that 
John Hanks, who was with Lincoln at New Orleans in 
1831, told me the story. At that time and place Lincoln 
was made an anti-slavery man. He saw a slave, a beau- 
tiful mulatto girl, sold at auction. She was felt over, 
pinched, trotted around to show to bidders that said article 
was sound, etc. Lincoln walked away from the sad, in- 
human scene with a deep feeling of unsmotherable hate. 
He said to John Hanks this: 'By God! if I ever get a 
chance to hit that institution. Til hit it hard, John.' He 
got his chance, and did hit it hard. John Hanks, who was 
two or three times examined by me, told me the above 
facts about the negro girl and Lincoln's declaration. There 
is not doubt about this. As to the fortune-telling story, I 
do not affirm anything or deny anything." 



240 APPENDIX 

THE WRECKING AND SALVING OF THE 
GREAT EASTERN CASE 

The anniversary of the loss of the Ti- 
tanic, and the suits which have been in- 
stituted in that connection, recall an in- 
teresting case buried in the old law re- 
ports — the wrecking and salving of the 
Great Eastern. 

The Great Eastern was the Titanic of 
its day, a monster English steamship, rep- 
resenting the acme of luxury and the last 
word in seagoing equipment. That the 
ship and the 800 people she carried were 
not completely lost was due to the acci- 
dent that a certain American engineer 
happened to be a passenger on the boat at 
the time of its fateful voyage. 

Two days out from Liverpool the ship 
encountered a severe gale, in which her 
rudder pillar was snapped in two, part 
remaining attached to the steering gear, 
while the blade swung idle in the water. 
The sails were blown to ribbons, the 



APPENDIX 241 



boats were washed away, and the great 
ship, absolutely unmanageable, rolled 
from side to side in the trough of the sea. 
^'Everything breakable was destroyed," 
says the record. 'The cabin, besides un- 
dergoing the dangers arising from the 
crashes and collisions which were con- 
stantly going on, had shipped a great deal 
of water, and the stores were floating 
about in utter confusion and ruin. Some 
of the chandeliers fell down with a crash; 
a large mirror was smashed into a thou- 
sand fragments; rails of bannisters, bars, 
and numerous other fittings were broken 
into numberless pieces. The luggage of 
the passengers was lying in two feet of 
water, and before the deliverance of the 
ship was effected, the luggage was liter- 
ally reduced to rags and pieces of timber. 
Twenty-five fractures of limbs occurred 
from the concussions caused by the tre- 
mendous lurching of the vessel." 

The officers of the ship made repeated 
attempts, between Friday morning and 



242 APPENDIX 

Saturday afternoon, to get control of the 
ship's motions, but these efforts all proved 
fruitless. One of the passengers, Mr. 
Hamilton E. Towle, an American en- 
gineer of ability and experience, had 
watched these various attempts and had 
devised a plan of his own for getting con- 
trol of the rudder. Naturally enough, 
his advice was impatiently rejected by 
the chief engineer of the ship. But when 
the engineer, at a loss what else to do, 
began to unscrew a nut which contributed 
to support the weight of the lower part 
of the rudder, Mr. Towle went to the 
captain to protest against what he con- 
sidered a fatal mistake. 

The captain, facing the danger of de- 
struction, listened to the plans of the vol- 
unteer, ordered the official engineer aside, 
and put the workmen under the direction 
of Mr. Towle, who, working all Saturday 
night and Sunday, succeeded in rigging 
up a temporary steering gear which was 
successfully operated, and by five o'clock 



APPENDIX 243 

on Sunday afternoon the ship was brought 
up to the sea and put on her return course. 
Besides her cargo she carried 400 pas- 
sengers, and about the same number as 
officers and crew. One can imagine the 
situation when the great ship really an- 
swered again to the helm. It was a thrill- 
ing moment. 

Mr. Towle filed a claim for salvage,* 
and the case was decided in the District 
Court, Southern District of New York, 
by Judge Shipman, who awarded Mr. 
Towle fifteen thousand dollars; the value 
of the Great Eastern being estimated at 
half a million. The difficulty which the 
case presented from the legal standpoint, 
arose from the fact that Mr. Towle was a 
passenger, and that the ordinary rule in 



* Mr. Towle did not file a claim for salvage until after 
the English press had attempted to rob him of the honor 
of saving the great ship; then fellow passengers who felt 
that they owed their lives to him urged him to do so — 
but we must bear in mind that, in the opinion of the 
writer, this jealous act of the English press had no con- 
nection with the British Admiralty. 



244 APPENDIX 

admiralty requires passengers to render 
what services they can to their ship in 
distress, without giving them a claim as 
salvors. Judge Shipman decided, how- 
ever, that Mr. Towle's services were be- 
yond the ordinary services which could 
be required of a passenger, since it would 
have been entirely out of the power of the 
ordinary passenger to perform them. 

This interesting case, which, from the 
novel questions involved, was the subject 
of wide comment was not published in 
this country at the time, except in news- 
papers, although it appeared in England 
soon after it was decided, ii Law T. 
(N. S.) 516, and 2 Marit. Law Cas. 148. 
It is, however, reported in full in ''Fed- 
eral Cases" from which the above ab- 
stract of the dramatic circumstances of 
the wreck had been made.* 



♦This article is copied from West Publishing Com- 
pany's "Docket," Saint Paul, Minnesota, of May, 1913. 



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